{"id":420082,"date":"2021-04-06T19:59:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T02:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&p=420082"},"modified":"2021-04-06T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T18:30:04","slug":"developing-spatial-thinking-is-critical","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/developing-spatial-thinking-is-critical","title":{"rendered":"Developing Spatial Thinking is Critical"},"author":5752,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[171,282062,472991],"tags":[277222,280172,28932,160632,1811],"arcnews_issues":[472051],"class_list":["post-420082","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-geography","category-gis","tag-academic","tag-geospatial","tag-gis-education","tag-maps","tag-story-maps","arcnews_issues-spring-2021","arcnews_sections-gis-people"],"acf":{"short_description":"GI Learner is a program designed to help teachers instill geospatial thinking and GIS awareness in junior high and high school students.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In 2020, the United Kingdom\u2019s Geospatial Commission identified the ways in which location data\u2014where people and objects are in relation to a particular geographic location\u2014can impact virtually every aspect of daily life, from infrastructure to the environment. Without GIS, that data is like paint without a canvas.\r\n\r\nThe US Department of Labor has identified geotechnology as one of the three most economically powerful emerging fields. Since then, the number of companies, organizations, and nonprofit groups using GIS has doubled\u2014and policy makers worldwide have affirmed the critical role location data plays in economic transformation."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

A Decline in Spatial Awareness<\/h2>\r\nBut even as the use of GIS has increased, technology has also exerted a countervailing influence on geospatial literacy. A generation that has grown up with easy access to GPS-based tools is missing an overall spatial awareness. Mounting evidence has shown that young people, lacking facility with traditional paper maps, have trouble navigating without technological assistance.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was recently a program on Belgian TV that showed people getting basic training to go into the military,\u201d said Luc Zwartjes, an assistant professor of geography at Ghent University in Belgium. \u201cThey had to do a lot of tests, including reading a topographical map. Only one of the candidates was able to do it.\u201d\r\n\r\nRenowned geographer Peirce F. Lewis described geography as \u201cthe only subject that asks you to look at the world and try to make sense of it.\u201d A slight exaggeration, yes, but geography is indeed the discipline that probes the relationship between the physical world and the lived experience.\r\n\r\nFor geographers, the possibilities of studying the world have exploded, as GIS technology has grown in both popularity and capability. The use of GIS is vast in both the public and private sectors, as more of the world\u2019s information\u201480 percent, by some estimates\u2014has a geographic component."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Deeper Implications for Education and Business<\/h2>\r\nThe implications of map illiteracy cut to the core of being human. Even our inner worlds are shaped by the concept of spatial relativity. As cognitive psychologist Barbara Tversky, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, and professor emerita of psychology at Stanford University, has argued that, \u201cSpatial thinking\u2014acting in the world with the things in the world\u2014is the foundation of thought.\u201d\r\n\r\nTversky has focused a good deal of her research on maps for their remarkable capability to wordlessly convey real spaces. She cites decades of research to show how well-crafted maps (along with diagrams, graphs, and visualizations) are the most effective language to convey a broad range of complex concepts.\r\n\r\nZwartjes defines geospatial thinking as a specialized form of spatial thinking that manifests itself in the ability to \u201cinterpret and explain information at different geographic scales connected to Earth.\u201d For millennia, that skill was linked most closely to the ability to read a paper map.\r\n\r\nLacking geospatial skills and being immersed in map apps that require no critical thinking, people lose the ability\u2014and, perhaps even more important, the motivation\u2014to pursue geospatial thinking as one's life calling. Too few take courses in geographic information science in higher education. Zwartjes has found that even for those who do, academic programs mostly focus on informatics, without giving students solid instruction on the scientific basis of spatial thinking.\r\n\r\nKarl Donert, former president of the European Association of Geographers, has led efforts to persuade the European Union to address the problem. \u201cWe spent over 10 years trying to get GIS and the geotechnology market recognized as an area where jobs weren\u2019t being filled because kids weren\u2019t being trained,\u201d he said. \u201cWe phoned and emailed high-level politicians and policy makers at the European Commission. Despite agreeing, they never issued a policy statement affirming the need to focus on geotechnology education.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

The Birth of GI Learner<\/h2>\r\nA few years ago, Zwartjes and Donert decided that one way to encourage geospatial thinking in education was to make it easier for teachers to include geospatial concepts in their curricula. After careful study, they created GI Learner, a six-year program designed to help teachers instill geospatial thinking and GIS awareness, beginning in the seventh grade and continuing through high school.\r\n\r\n\u201cGI Learner is not a single course about spatial thinking or GIS. It's about applying the benefits of spatial thinking and GIS to courses like geography, history, and so on,\u201d said Zwartjes. To create GI Learner, Zwartjes and Donert identified 10 core competencies related to geospatial thinking, such as the abilities to \u201cvisually communicate geospatial thinking\u201d and \u201ccritically read and interpret cartographic and other visualizations in different media.\u201d\r\n\r\nEach competency is divided into three levels. Most of the competency subjects are designed to be introduced in the early years of the program, with levels gradually added through the years. Zwartjes and Donert provide exercises and activities teachers can use in the classroom.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor instance,\u201d Zwartjes said, \u201cyou say you\u2019re able to read a map. But level C asks if you can critically read a map. If you look at the map, is the information correct? Who made it? Is it a kind of political statement or is it pure data?\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

One Program, Many Approaches<\/h2>\r\nBecause the way geography is taught varies so widely across different European countries, Zwartjes and Donert designed GI Learner for maximum flexibility.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe created lessons in a way that gives teachers a lot of options,\u201d Zwartjes said. \u201cSo if they\u2019re talking about globalization in their school, we have a package of two to four lessons that teachers can use to replace their own lessons. They don\u2019t need to make a new course, and they can start with what they already produced.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs GI Learner has been deployed in five schools in five countries (Austria, Belgium, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the EU officials Donert tried to reach for so many years have started to take notice. The European Commission Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture has selected the project as a \u201csuccess story,\u201d a distinction given to projects that have had a great impact, contributed to policy making, and produced innovative results with a creative approach.\r\n\r\n\u201cTwo things have made the program really encouraging to the European Commission,\u201d Donert said. \u201cOne is that it covers six years of study, and the other is that it\u2019s applicable across the curricula in all countries.\u201d A new consortium is now working on a follow-up project, GI Pedagogy, that helps train teachers on GIS instruction, using materials such as GI Learner.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m rather confident that over the next five years, GI Learner will be\u2014I\u2019m not going to say \u2018booming\u2019; that would be the wrong word,\u201d Zwartjes explained. \u201cBut it will certainly have more influence, and teachers will get used to working with it. At the same time, it will give students more flexibility to use it in more subjects and more situations.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

My Map, My Story<\/h2>\r\nGIS provides new ways of looking at the world. But the technology\u2014and maps in general\u2014also opens up new vistas in storytelling. In addition to deploying GI Learner, geographers Luc Zwartjes and Karl Donert have developed the My Story Map project, which teaches young adults how to use GIS to develop their own personal narratives.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s aimed at youngsters who have dropped out of school or have problems at home,\u201d Zwartjes said. \u201cI\u2019ve been training groups of them, and sometimes it gives me the shivers. I\u2019m used to working with high-level students because of the university and so on, but some of these students, I can\u2019t even imagine what they\u2019ve gone through.\u201d For some students who have participated in the program, particularly recent immigrants, the maps provide an ideal medium for telling their life story.\r\n\r\nUnlike GI Learner, the My Story Map project doesn\u2019t aim to broaden the scope of geospatial thought. \u201cTo be honest, the emphasis really isn\u2019t on spatial thinking,\u201d Zwartjes said. \u201cIt\u2019s more about giving these youngsters a way to develop 21st century skills. They\u2019ve had negative experiences, so let\u2019s try to turn those into something positive. They do everything themselves\u2014using the tool, making the map, adding data. They make the story their own.\u201d"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"\nDeveloping Spatial Thinking is Critical | ArcNews | Spring 2021<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"GI Learner is a program designed to help teachers instill geospatial thinking & GIS awareness in junior high & high school students.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/developing-spatial-thinking-is-critical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Developing Spatial Thinking is Critical | ArcNews | Spring 2021\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"GI Learner is a program designed to help teachers instill geospatial thinking & GIS awareness in junior high & high school students.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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