Teaching Science And Investigating Environmental Issues With Geospatial Technology

The emerging field of using geospatial technology to teach science and environmental education presents an excellent opportunity to discover the ways in which educators use research-grounded pedagogical commitments in combination with their practical experiences to design and implement effective teacher professional development projects. Often missing from the literature are in-depth, explicit discussions of why and how educators choose to provide certain experiences and resources for the teachers with whom they work, and the resulting outcomes. The first half of this book will enable science and environmental educators to share the nature and structure of large scale professional development projects while discussing the theoretical commitments that undergird their work. Many chapters will include temporal aspects that present the ways in which projects change over time in response to evaluative research and practical experience. In the second half of the book, faculty and others whose focus is on national and international scales will share the ways in which they are working to meet the growing needs of teachers across the globe to incorporate geospatial technology into their science teaching. These efforts reflect the ongoing conversations in science education, geography, and the geospatial industry in ways that embody the opportunities and challenges inherent to this field. This edited book will serve to define the field of teacher professional development for teaching science using geospatial technology. As such, it will identify short term and long term objectives for science, environmental, and geography educators involved in these efforts. As a result, this book will provide a framework for future projects and research in this exciting and growing field.

The extraordinary gains in computer performance over the past two decades have been paralleled by a related growth in geospatial applications. An important reason for this proliferation is that these tools provide a convenient framework for multidisciplinary analysis and synthesis of data in environmental science, earth science, and the social sciences in particular. The value of geospatial technology for learning is not new, as for more than a decade, educators have recognized the promise of geographic geospatial technologies to support learning through inquiry across the social and natural sciences. However, only recently with the rise of easier to use geospatial technologies such as Google Earth and similar resources have educators been able to critically examine how geospatial technologies can support students in learning. In fact, the nature of geospatial technologies with its ability to allow users to examine and visualize large data sets and to discern patterns from those data presents an excellent opportunity to better understand how educators can support students in higher level thinking skills. Now is the time for a summation of this rapidly emerging field as there has been significant work examining the learning impacts of having students use geospatial technologies that is either happening now or has just reached completion. This edited book will serve to define the field of learning environment design for teaching science using geospatial technology. As such, it will identify short term and long term objectives for science, environmental, and geography educators involved in these efforts. Further, this book will be complementary to MaKinster, Trautmann, and Barnett’s book Teaching Science and Investigating Environmental Issues with Geospatial Technology: Designing Effective Professional Development for Teachers. Whereas MaKinster’s et al. book focuses on teacher professional development, this book will focus strictly on student learning outcomes and the design of geospatial environments for K-16 students. As a result, this book will provide a framework for future projects and research on learning in K-16 settings.

This book is an initiative presented by the Commission on Geographical Education of the International Geographical Union. It focuses particularly on what has been learned from geospatial projects and research from the past decades of implementing geospatial technologies (GST) in formal and informal education. The objective of this publication is to inform an international audience of teachers, professionals, scholars, and policymakers about the state of the art and prospects of geospatial practices (GPs) as organized activities that use GST and lessons learned in relation to geographical education. GST make up an advanced body of knowledge developed by practitioners of geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing (RS), global positioning systems, (GPS), and digital cartography (DC). GST have long been applied in many different sectors; however, their first use in higher education began in the early 1980s and then diffused to secondary schools during the 1990s. Starting with GIS and RS, it evolved into a much broader context, as GST expanded to include GPS and DC with new communication technologies and Internet applications. GST have been used around the world as a combination of tools and special techniques to make research, teaching, and learning more effective.

The environment and contested notions of sustainability are increasingly topics of public interest, political debate, and legislation across the world. Environmental education journals now publish research from a wide variety of methodological traditions that show linkages between the environment, health, development, and education. The growth in scholarship makes this an opportune time to review and synthesize the knowledge base of the environmental education (EE) field. The purpose of this 51-chapter handbook is not only to illuminate the most important concepts, findings and theories that have been developed by EE research, but also to critically examine the historical progression of the field, its current debates and controversies, what is still missing from the EE research agenda, and where that agenda might be headed. Published for the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

This book addresses new pedagogies focusing on the use of geospatial technologies and geomedia in the classroom. Today, geospatial technologies are substantially influencing geography teaching and learning, particularly in secondary education. Web-GIS, virtual globes, storytelling, maps and apps for mobile devices are transforming the nature and design of geography curricula, instructional processes, didactics, resources and assessments. Undoubtedly, geography is among those school subjects that have benefited most from the implementation of new technologies in the classroom. Geospatial technologies can be used to develop inquiry-based learning or project-based learning pedagogies and help students to acquire spatial reasoning and spatial citizenship skills in the context of education for sustainable development. This book highlights a range of initiatives, projects and educational practices – from several European countries and settings – related to geospatial challenges in geography education. Given its scope, it will be equally appealing to scientists, students and teachers of geography and other fields using geospatial technologies and geomedia.

In-service teacher professional development is central to most empirical conceptions of educational quality. As the techniques and strategies for educational reform have spread rapidly throughout the world, teacher professional development practices have been borrowed across borders. It is important to study the global sharing of information on teacher professional development. Global Perspectives on Teacher Performance Improvement examines the implementation of proven, high quality teacher professional development practices in unique environments around the world. It further explains the power of a globally connected community of teacher quality improvement. Covering topics such as mentoring programs, education technology, and education workforce, this book is an essential resource for educational administration and faculty, pre-service teachers, the public education sector, government officials, educators of both K-12 and higher education, researchers, and academicians.

This volume brings together advanced concepts from leading academic scientists, educationalists, administrative policymakers, and researchers on their experiences and research results on many aspects of digital educational methods and teaching practices. It provides an interdisciplinary compilation of recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as the challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of digital pedagogies and educational design. It is becoming increasingly important to develop adaptive, robust, scalable, and digital teaching-learning mechanisms in academics. This volume addresses this need by discussing the advancements in flipped and blended learning, student- and teacher-centric learning in technical institutes, critical digital pedagogies, and the complex analyses and collaborations with organizations outside the academy. This book also deals with protocols for educational and administrative policies, IoT-based teaching-learning methodology, teaching education and the process of assessment, testing and evaluation, integration of technology with digital education, and different case study-based approaches in digital teaching-learning methodology.

Access to learning materials has been an issue within education that has had a profound impact on student outcomes and equality among students. New strategies for promoting more equal access to these materials began within institutions of higher learning and can be adapted at lower levels to facilitate equity within educational systems. Open Educational Resources (OER) Pedagogy and Practices is a comprehensive research publication that explores open access to educational materials and its impact on educational cost, educational equity, and poverty. Featuring a range of topics such as instructional design, pedagogy, and gamification, this book is essential for teachers, curriculum developers, instructional designers, principals, school boards, educational professionals, academicians, professors, administrators, educational policymakers, researchers, and educational agencies.