Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

A perspective from the United StatesWorldwide, half the number of professionals using GIS as a part of their job are foundin the United States, and about 20,000 schools there are now using GIS (EducationWorld, 2004). At least 1400 American colleges and universities are involved, but onlyabout 53% of the demand for Masters-level graduates with intensive GIS education isbeing met (ESRI 2000). Most professional preparation amounts to only a single GIScourse, while a growing effort at professional certification calls for the successfulcompletion of at least four courses. Because the university system in the U.S. is muchless prescriptive than for example in Germany, there is less coordination or concernabout what a standard GIS education should be for future teachers. At Bemidji StateUniversity (BSU) for example, GIS training of teachers is indistinguishable fromthat provided to natural resource specialists, political scientists, or criminal justicestudents. Still, nationally some remarkable examples of GIS curriculum are foundin especially poor areas and in schools with predominantly minority populations,which is of special interest for BSU because of the presence in northern Minnesotaof three large Indian reservations.BSU offers a “Geographic Information Systems” course and a “Techniques inGIS” course, with initial exposure in a university-wide “Introduction to Map Use”course. There is no specific program for geographic education, but the social studieseducation unit is housed in the Department of Geography & Political Science, whichalso holds summer workshops for already licensed teachers wishing to add GIScompetence. Six undergraduate degree options are offered to majors in geography,four of which include some GIS coursework. Three of the major options are preprofessionalplanning programs; the fourth is a Bachelor of Science program specificallyemphasizing GIS, including not only three GIS courses but also three computerprogramming or data modelling courses, an internship experience, and a site analysisand planning needs assessment element. A 7-course GIS minor for non-geographerswill be offered for the first time in the 2005-2006 academic year including curriculummodification to provide an “Advanced GIS” course. While BSU is not necessarilytypical of American universities, its efforts (especially in light of limited staffingand material resources given its remote location and a student population of onlyabout 6000) reveal the growing need to more than merely acquaint students withGIS software.Student reactions to GISNonetheless, it seems to be a global effect: students’ first steps in GIS are connectedto frustration about the complexity of mastering the software, and as soon as youstart to work on the next step, most of the knowledge from the previous lectureseems to be lost. At BSU, two weeks of a 14-week semester are spent just gainingfamiliarity with the ArcView “general user interface.” Basic exploration of datasetsbundled with the software, together with a project designed to have students testa geographical hypothesis, take at least two more weeks. Optimally, students shouldbe able to gather new data from beyond the material supplied with the software, anddevelop confidence manipulating that information, too. When 63 students in the BSU85