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The History and Application of GIS in Educationby Tom Baker, KanCRN Systems SpecialistThe Future The future of GIS applications in education continues to grow rapidly. With the inclusion of remote sensing, desktop GIS, and Internet-based mapping, students are gaining the opportunities to become fully immersed in the analysis of spatial data. Many schools, grants, and companies are rapidly developing improved applications, with real data and the intention of solving known and unknown scientific problems. Geodesy, like ESRI's ArcVoyager, is an application where the GIS tool has been streamlined allowing for more immediate access for student use, minimizing the initial learning curve. Geodesy, emphasizing remote sensing and GIS technologies, is built upon ArcView 2.1 and allows for a customized local data set and curriculum-based GUI. The interface of the package is designed for its singular audience of K-12 students, benchmarked against the Geography for Life Standards, a scope and sequence for K-12 geography education (Radke, 1999). In conclusion, teachers and students using Geographic Information Systems have already began to prove their effectiveness as a powerful motivator for learning and an outstanding tool for data analysis in and out of the science classroom. The barriers to continued proliferation of GIS in K-12 education tie most strongly to teacher training in pedagogy, curriculum, and technical skills. In many respects, the hardware, software, and data sets required for GIS analysis are readily available to schools, while the traditionally complex and rigid interface of GIS software is no longer a problem. Student versions of GIS software, such as Geodesy, ArcVoyger, and internet-based mapping applications, have allowed for relatively quick learning of a powerful data analysis application. Students and educators have come far in their use of these tools for instruction. It's our responsibility as the new generation of GIS analysts to ensure that this trend of growth not only continues, but also excels. Contents:
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