GIS in the Classroom Provides an Innovative Method to Teach Social Studies

Throughout his career, Chris Bunin has specialized in teaching geography, AP Human Geography, and history. Embracing innovation to keep students engaged, he has moved away from traditional worksheets and textbooks, integrating GIS technology into his lessons.

But Bunin’s journey with GIS began unexpectedly. “I stumbled across GIS and fell in love with it,” he said. Initially unsure about his career path, he discovered his passion for teaching and mentoring while working at youth summer camps. During his social studies teacher training, he took a mapping course that introduced him to Esri’s ArcGIS software, which he found particularly engaging.

In the late to mid-90’s when Bunin started teaching middle school, he was eager to incorporate GIS into his lessons. However, his school’s computers were incompatible with Esri software. Undeterred, he secured a cart of laptops compatible with ArcGIS through a technology consortium and wrote a proposal to teach 6th-grade history students how to map their world using Esri’s publication, “Mapping Our World.” After winning the proposal, he obtained single-use software from Esri. His students began using ArcMap, the former main component of the ArcGIS suite of programs, to explore urban connections and historical changes. “I saw the power of GIS right away,” he said.

Inspired by his success, Bunin began working for a grant-funded university and K–12 partnership to assist other teachers with emerging technology. This would enable them to enhance history instruction and integrate GIS into their lessons. He helped them create datasets for various topics. For instance, one teacher used a map to illustrate the voting patterns of representatives at the Constitutional Convention, simplifying a complex topic often found in textbooks.

After the project concluded, Bunin moved to Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Virginia, a school with a vibrant community of nearly 2,000 students. Upon his arrival, the principal asked about his goals, and Bunin immediately expressed his desire to launch a geography and GIS program. He received strong support from both the school and the district. 

Within two years, the school introduced AP Human Geography and dual-enrollment geospatial technology courses. Despite initial low enrollment, the principal encouraged the program’s growth. Bunin continued to develop the courses and collaborate with other teachers to explore ways of teaching GIS. “Teachers were amazed and would say you just taught a concept in 10 minutes that would take me 30 minutes otherwise,” he said. 

In 2014, Bunin transitioned to using ArcGIS Online. About that same time, Esri provided K–12 schools around the world with no-cost access to ArcGIS Online. “I’ve been in the right places at the right time. My passion for what I love about teaching, learning, and the interplay between geography and history came together at the same time,” said Bunin. 

Two years later, Bunin was selected as the 2016 Outstanding Secondary Social Studies Teacher of the Year by the National Council for the Social Studies. 

He continues to mentor newer teachers by showing them how to integrate GIS into their lesson plans. Teachers are receptive to advancing their GIS knowledge because they see what they can do with the technology. 

At Albemarle High School, Bunin’s elective GIS courses have grown in popularity, with 50–70 students per year eagerly wanting to take his classes. He secured a grant for the school to purchase a drone, which would help develop the introductory unit on drone photography and videography. But having only one drone limited the practicality of the topic due to the time it took for each student to learn drone fundamentals. But the Albemarle High School administrators and school division purchased nine more drones to support an immersive and practical drone unit that now takes two to three weeks rather than four to six weeks to teach. 

With the drones in possession, Bunin launched the grant-funded project “Revisiting Charlottesville,” where students explore and reconnect with their communities through a geographic lens using ArcGIS tools. “If students’ only memory of a place is from fourth grade, that means their understanding is at an elementary level. But as students get older, they grasp the complex layers of things,” explained Bunin. 

As part of the project, students attend “sense of place” field trips around Charlottesville and are asked to use geospatial collecting tools like ArcGIS Field Maps, an all-in-one application that uses data-driven maps and mobile forms to perform data capture. They also use ArcGIS Survey123, a mobile form-centric solution to obtain information about how different people experience and interpret places as well as landscapes. Advanced GIS students also attend a field experience where they use drones to capture photos of rivers, vineyards, waterfalls, agriculture areas, and urban sprawl around Albemarle County to create a public service announcement video. 

Bunin has grown the program and coursework over the past several years. Today, his students take supplemental online GIS courses through Esri Academy, and many take the Esri technical certification exam, GIS Fundamentals Foundation. Moreover, his GIS II students that use drones can earn industry credentials, by having the school division help pay for and prepare them for their Remote Pilot Certificate from the FAA, also known as Part 107. 

“Last year more than half of the GIS II students passed both [credentials],” said Bunin. “I think about this work as both selfish and selfless. Selfishly, I get to teach what I love, but selflessly, I know that this technology is a game changer for so many kids.” 

Unlike so many other high school drone programs that stop at students earning a Part 107 license, Bunin reengages students by bringing them back to making maps, this time incorporating drone imagery into advanced ArcGIS projects using ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Drone2Map. In this way, Bunin provides additional awareness into geospatial career opportunities.

Throughout his years of offering GIS courses at the high school, Bunin has seen success from students both inside and outside of GIS careers. “I have several students who maybe didn’t know what they wanted to do as a career but now work for the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], the Census Bureau, or as a US Marine Corps cartographer,” explained Bunin. Even students who chose not to pursue GIS as a career have shared with Bunin how the foundation in GIS has helped them. “I have a student who is a nurse tell me that knowing GIS helped her get a nursing job. Hospitals are a complex geography, and she wasn’t intimidated by that,” remarked Bunin. 

Bunin is constantly upgrading the GIS program and wanting to learn more for himself. This summer, he plans to study how to add sensors to drones for precision agriculture, expanding the “Revisiting Charlottesville” program to visit farmers next year.