{"id":308752,"date":"2020-02-21T18:38:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T02:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcuser&#038;p=308752"},"modified":"2020-02-21T20:03:40","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T04:03:40","slug":"gis-elementary-teacher","status":"publish","type":"arcuser","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcuser\/gis-elementary-teacher","title":{"rendered":"A Real-World Education"},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","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":[171,25032,10932],"tags":[163052,422372,195682],"arcuser_issues":[417412],"class_list":["post-308752","arcuser","type-arcuser","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-education-2","category-esri-user-conference","tag-geoinquiries","tag-gis-educator","tag-teach-with-gis","arcuser_issues-winter-2020"],"acf":{"short_description":"Middle school teacher Lauren Sinclair loves enabling kids to make great maps. ","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"pdf","file":308772},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Almost every day <\/b><\/span>that Lauren Sinclair teaches one of her middle school GIS design classes, she gets asked by a student if the data they are working with is real.\u00a0Is this information about real people from the real census?<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\">These students are amazed and impressed by a fundamental fact about GIS that can be easy for the rest of us to forget. Everything else in their education is hypothetical, but in GIS class, they work with real data from the real world. They recognize why that matters: it means they can make decisions that have a real impact.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":308782,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":"","text":"If students can follow instructions, they can do GIS, so teachers can guide them without being GIS experts.","author_name":"","author_profession_organization":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p class=\"p2\">A middle school teacher who loves enabling kids to make great maps, Sinclair teaches sixth\u00a0grade and eighth\u00a0grade GIS design classes at the French International School in Portland, Oregon. In addition to GIS design, she teaches woodworking and environmental science. A National Geographic Educator, she is constantly brainstorming new ways for middle school students everywhere to unlock the power of GIS. She is also a Where\u2019s Waldo aficionado and a Carmen Sandiego lookalike.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\"> Her teaching methods are varied. She starts sixth\u00a0graders with concrete exercises, such as\u00a0building topography contours with modeling compound.\u00a0This year her eighth grade students are working on the Learn ArcGIS lesson\u00a0\u201cMap Voter Data to Plan Your Campaign\u201d\u00a0and are participating in the\u00a0<i>Going Places with Spatial Analysis<\/i>\u00a0massive open online course (MOOC). Both are offered by Esri at no cost.\u00a0Students at either level finish the course by creating their own maps. Sixth\u00a0graders must map something on their school campus, while eighth\u00a0graders are given free rein to map anything they choose.<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\">Instead of starting each class with a description of what the students will do that day, Sinclair begins with a discussion on why they should care about the day\u2019s assignment. Middle school kids may be adopting a \u201cWho cares?\u201d attitude, but that\u2019s not necessarily because they don\u2019t care. They just want some justification for why they should. Sinclair\u2019s GIS classes this year have focused on political participation, specifically redistricting and gerrymandering. Students are passionate about these topics and want to make maps that propose fairer solutions.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":308792,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Sinclair wants students to know that it\u2019s empowering to use real data in a real way. This year, her students participated in a mapathon for the\u00a0Missing Maps\u00a0program. Missing Maps, an open, collaborative project, helps map areas where humanitarian organizations are trying to help vulnerable people. As soon as Sinclair\u2019s students understood they would be contributing to maps that would be used by real people in humanitarian organizations on the other side of the world, they couldn\u2019t wait to get started. <\/span><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\">Sinclair also volunteers to teach other classes using\u00a0GeoInquiries, short, standards-based inquiry activities for teaching map-based\u00a0content found in commonly used textbooks.<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/349ZSnm\"> GeoInquiries<\/a> are available from Esri for free. The other teacher logs an hour of professional development time observing as Sinclair guides their students through map-based learning and is introduced to a powerful teaching tool at the same time.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\">Sinclair wants other teachers to know that they don\u2019t need to be good at GIS. They don\u2019t have to take time to learn this new technology because GeoInquiries are easy for both students and teachers to use. If students can follow instructions, they can do GIS, so teachers can guide them without being GIS experts.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\">Although she studied GIS at Portland State University, it was back before there were readily available resources for K\u201312 GIS education, so Sinclair got started using GIS in teaching by enrolling in the\u00a0GeoMentors\u00a0program, which matched her with local GIS experts. Next, she attended the\u00a0Esri User Conference, where she met like-minded educators who became a valuable peer group. Now she\u2019s ready to help others. She encourages teachers curious about teaching with GIS to reach out to her via Twitter\u00a0@MrsSinclairMaps\u00a0or <a href=\"lsinclair@faispdx.org\">email.<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Real-World Education<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lauren Sinclair teaches sixth\u00a0grade and eighth\u00a0grade GIS design classes at the French International School in Portland, Oregon. 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