Premier’s EnergyAustralia Environmental Education
Scholarship
Best practice in the use of
Geographical Information Systems
(GIS) in environmental education
Douglas Reckord
Bournda Environmental Education Centre
Sponsored by
Rationale – GIS:a tool for exploring our world
The purpose of this study was to examine best practice in the use of Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) in environmental education. Richard Louv documents in his
2005 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, a strong
imperative in environmental education to direct children away from the virtual world of
computers and TV and into their natural surroundings. So why GIS as a tool for
Environmental Education Centres (EECs) and schools?
Most environmental educators would support the proposition that getting students to
map their surroundings is an important process in the development of spatial literacy and
“a sense of place”. GIS provides us with powerful capabilities to store, retrieve, analyse
and display environmental data at local or global scales and can aid students in their
exploration of the natural world. This has been referred to in GIS education literature as
“augmented reality”. The Digital Earth project (http://www.isde5.org) extends this
concept to a virtual, 3-dimensional representation of the Earth, with interconnected,
spatially referenced, digital knowledge archives. This study focused on the United States,
the centre of the GIS industry. ESRI, a recognised world leader in GIS software, is based
in California and the key events of my scholarship, the annual ESRI GIS Users and
Education Conferences, were held in San Diego.
The tension between environmental education and using computer based technology was
resolved for me during a presentation at the ESRI GIS conference by 2004 Nobel Prize
winner Professor Wangari Maathai. Before an audience of over 14 000 (yes, 14 000!) at
the world’s largest GIS conference, Professor Maathai described the work of the Green
Belt Movement (GBM), an organisation she founded in Kenya in 1977. The GBM is a
prominent women’s’ civil society organisation that puts protection of the environment at
the heart of their human rights activities. GBM has planted over 40 million trees and the
role of GIS in education and management of projects was clearly outlined. Professor
Maathai’s passionate concern for our global environment, and the need for us to share
the world’s resources equitably, was deeply moving – it was an inspiring presentation that
I will never forget.
Green Belt Movement Presentation at the ESRI Conference
Findings – Best Practice
The ESRI conferences put me in contact with participants from many countries
including the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Switzerland, Rwanda, United
States, New Zealand, South Africa, Peru and India. Combined with visits to schools,
universities and environmental education centres I accumulated a wealth of material on
GIS programs.
There is a temptation to focus on the many obstacles to GIS implementation that can
readily be identified. There is also a temptation to simply equate the most effective
programs with those that have the greatest resource base to eliminate many of those
technical and logistical problems. I was most interested in examples where the following
best practice features could be observed:

Emphasis on thinking skills and inquiry processes

Authentic projects that engage students

GIS related to post-school education and employment choices

Opportunities for disadvantaged students

Provision of quality teaching resources and training.
Emphasis on Thinking Skills and Inquiry Processes
Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager has stated that;
“GIS is a tool that enhances and facilitates good instruction; it does not guarantee it, nor
does it provide quality instruction. Just as a Stradivarius, a fine camera, a perfectly
balanced fly rod, and the best cookware cannot solve all problems for a poor violinist,
photographer, angler or cook, GIS is a technology that can be employed well or poorly.”
(Alibrandi, 2003).
In practice this requires that to be employed well GIS must be part of a well thought out
inquiry process. Without this we run the risk of using the technology for its own sake in
meaningless studies. Various authors have explored the DIKW hierarchy of Data,
Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom
(see http://www.systems-thinking.org/kmgmt/kmgmt.htm). Good planning, thinking
and study design are much more likely to posit us at the wisdom end of the hierarchy!!
Earthworks - http://cires.colorado.edu/education/k12/earthworks/. Earthworks is a
free one-week workshop for secondary science teachers coordinated by the Cooperative
Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES - University of Colorado).
With the help of practising Earth scientists, participants design and conduct a field-based
interdisciplinary study. The atmosphere was dynamic and fun and the participants were
obviously having an intellectually stimulating professional development experience. The
Earthworks approach provides an ideal forum for getting teachers to think critically
about the use of GIS as a tool to support investigations. The Visual Instruction Support
for Inquiry-based Odysseys in the NASA Explorer Schools (VISIONES) program
identified that many teachers need further professional learning in developing research questions
appropriate to GIS. Practical examples were provided and teachers had to develop an
appropriate data collection strategy for specific scientific and geographic questions.
Grade 2-4 students working with desktop GIS at the ESRI Conference
California 4-H Wildlife Habitat Evaluation Program (CAL-WHEP)
http://www.ca4h.org/projresource/whep/index.asp. CAL-WHEP provides a valuable
youth development opportunity within the 4-H framework of citizenship, leadership and
life-skills. The habitat evaluation program is very well documented and includes detailed
descriptions of key concepts and skills required in documenting habitat features. While
GIS and GPS are complementary technologies to the mapping components of WHEP, a
key recommendation was the importance of building up a “thought-model” before
employing any computers or collecting data. Rather than building simplistic GIS models
and simple answers when dealing with the complexity of ecosystems, students and
teachers are encouraged to constantly think about the basic interactions between an
animal and its environment -GIS can assist those thought processes but cannot replace
them.
Authentic projects that engage students. A commonly used strategy was authentic
project work that linked students, teachers, scientists and natural resource managers
through GIS use. These projects often involved multiple agencies, institutions and
community groups working on multidisciplinary environmental problems such as the
protection of significant habitat areas and the survival of threatened species. Students
assisted with fieldwork tasks and helped to build databases of environmental data.
Wildlink - http://wildlink.wilderness.net. Several practitioners warned against using
school students as “data mules” in repetitive field tasks. One strategy for avoiding
student disengagement with routine scientific work is to combine environmental science,
personal development and wilderness experiences. The Wildlink project is a partnership
between the Yosemite Institute and a variety of government and non-government
partners. While on five-day wilderness expeditions students from culturally diverse
backgrounds gather atmospheric, water and vegetation data. Project director Mandy
Vance cited the importance of partnerships to provide sufficient resources to pay costs
($US350) for each student and the salaries of coordinating staff. The online student
journals give a good indication of the positive impact of the project on young people.
Salton Sea Project - Redlands Institute at the University of Redlands
http://cem.uor.edu/salton/
The Salton Sea project illustrates how EECs can build up a range of online resources for
schools to access for pre-visit and post-visit activities, adding value to excursion
experiences.
Joshua Tree National Park http://www.discoveringtheancients.org/index.html. The
‘Discovering the Ancients of Joshua Tree National Park’ project is an excellent model for
student participation in the collection of important environmental data for conservation
management purposes. Another example of how data from such projects can be made
accessible to schools is the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Project
http://www.mojavedata.gov/.
Monterey Bay Aquarium - http://www.topp.org/species/leatherback_turtle. The
Tracking of Pacific Predators program studies the movements of important species such
as the leatherback turtle and white pointer shark. Satellite tags send daily updates that can
be mapped using simple GIS programs. Students establish a real connection by
identifying the locations of the animals and the distances they have covered. The
Dynamic Cycles Teacher Institute, a professional learning program, instructs teachers in
the use of real-time data from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s
Land/Ocean Biogeochemical Observatory. The aquarium’s webcams provide an
interesting example of how students anywhere in the world can access information on
what is happening in their ecosystems. Webcams located across the EEC network could
be georeferenced in a GIS for student investigations.
Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve –
http://www.elkhornslough.org/research/GIS.htm. The Elkhorn Slough NERR
Education Centre provides a range of environmental data available to schools. GIS
shapefiles can be downloaded from the site and live weather and nutrient data can be
obtained through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System Centralized Data
Management Office (see http://cdmo.baruch.sc.edu.) Visiting schools more effectively
evaluate their own fieldwork data when this level of support is available. Elkhorn Slough
has also collaborated on a project demonstrating the use of wireless technology for video
lessons delivered to schools. Kenton Parker, the Education Manager, described how the
students could ask him questions in real-time from their classroom while he is in the
field. Students can use GIS to log locations and features examined in the fieldwork.
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/National Centre for
Atmospheric Research – Boulder, Colorado.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst/index.html
http://www.globe.gov/GaN/analyze.html. Project Budburst and GLOBE at Night are
two outstanding examples of citizen science where volunteers contribute to a real
scientific research effort. Students can download and analyse the results using GIS
software. Project Budburst provides an excellent opportunity for linking EECs and
climate change activities in local schools.
Other examples of GIS related projects that engaged students included:
 Creating community atlases
 Mapping school grounds
 Mapping trees on school grounds and local streets
 Urban studies
 Geo-referencing oral histories




Mapping journeys – students read a story about a journey and map the details.
“Sense of Place” projects – mapping significant cultural and heritage sites
Identifying favourite places
Geocaching.
GIS related to post-school education and employment
choices
It is beyond the scope of this report to describe the astonishingly diverse range of
applications of GIS. It is sufficient to say that is a huge and rapidly growing, global,
multi-billion dollar industry employing thousands of highly skilled professionals. If you
named virtually any government or corporate sector and investigated their IT operations
it would be surprising not to find GIS being used somewhere.
San Diego State University/San Diego Mesa College
http://geoinfo.sdsu.edu/hightech/GISCareerLearningModules_top.htm. These Webbased GIS career awareness learning modules were funded by a National Science
Foundation (NSF) grant for the purpose of promoting geospatial career awareness
among students and teachers. Students attending the ESRI conference were positive
about the program.
Opportunities for disadvantaged students. SF-Rocks http://sf-rocks.sfsu.edu/2006quakes.htm. San Francisco State University coordinates the SF-Rocks connecting
under-represented urban school students with earth, environmental and atmospheric
research scientists. Professor Lisa White and Program Coordinator, Jim Neiss have
utilised NSF funding to set up wonderful opportunities that encourage these students to
select a science career. The use of Google Earth and KML (Keyhole Mark-up Language)
files for the earthquake fault project demonstrate how geospatial information can be
shared without the need for desktop GIS programs. KML files can also be used to store
information about using telemetry to map animal migratory patterns.
(See http://fresc.usgs.gov/products/blackoystercatcher/ptt_results.html.
The last two project features are closely linked; a clear link between employment
opportunities and GIS is especially valuable for disadvantaged students.
Provision of Quality Teaching Resources and Training
GIS Curriculum projects like EDGES (downloadable from http://www.scienceapproach.com) and COASTLINE (in development) have been developed with
substantial funding from project partners. Similar high quality teaching materials need to
be developed on NSW ecosystems for use in NSW schools.
Many workshops I attended at the ESRI conferences highlighted quality teaching
resources available through ESRI websites.
ArcLessons - http://gis.esri.com/industries/education/arclessons/arclessons.cfm. An
online library of online lessons organised around the geographic inquiry model. During
the ESRI EdUC I watched two lessons that involved mapping animal distributions,
“Mystery of the Monarchs” (for Grades 2-4) and “Bat Habitats” (for Grades 5-8).
Students were able to produce high quality maps that were displayed in the conference
poster session.
ArcIMS - http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcims/index.html. Internet Map
Server (IMS) is software that provides GIS publishing and distribution services. The
creation of web maps for GIS data seems logical for EECs wishing to provide
opportunities for schools to interact with data in pre/post visits. At the user conference
I worked with a 13 year old student to create a web map of data on the San Diego area.
ESRI Training - http://training.esri.com. This site lists recommended courses and
learning pathways including ESRI Live training seminars, pod casts and video tutorials.
ESRI Press has a comprehensive range of book titles for teacher training and student
use.
Edcommunity - http://edcommunity.esri.com. This is an online GIS community
providing support and information from GIS educators throughout the world.
Practitioners have the opportunity to submit their GIS stories.
Conclusion – Future directions for GIS
Since 2005 Bournda EEC has developed the following GPS/GIS capabilities:
 GPS used to locate data collection points during fieldwork
 Data points and field data are uploaded into ArcMap 9.2 (desktop GIS program)
 Data files, supplied under licence by the Department of Environment and Climate
Change (NPWS), are used in teaching students about their environment
 Production of high quality map products
 Highlighting GIS post-school education and employment choices through
collaboration with universities and government agencies
My observations reassured me that while we are making good progress in the use of GIS
in environmental education, further work needs to be done in the following areas to
ensure what we are doing reflects international best practice:
 Development of online units of work with local data and engaging contexts to support
pre-visit and post-visit activities;
 Development of web-based GIS for data collected by schools during fieldwork;
 Providing quality teaching resources and training that build an emphasis on thinking
skills and inquiry processes;
 3-D analysis including modelling of landforms;
 Investigating the use of webcams, automated weather stations, video conferencing
and other technology to augment environmental education experiences for students;
 Networking with other EECs and schools interested in GIS projects;
 Developing a K-12 syllabus framework for geo-spatial education at our centre; and
 Developing GIS materials/experiences that are more accessible to disadvantaged
students.
At a state level there is a need for a comprehensive review of how GIS technologies can
be best supported in our schools.
Bibliography
Alibrandi, M (2003), GIS in the Classroom, Using Geographic Information Systems in Social
Studies and Environmental Science, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH.