During July 2012, VirginiaView (www.virginiaview.net), the Virginia
Geospatial Extension Program (http://gep.frec.vt.edu), and three
partnering Virginia community colleges organized geospatial workshops located at
each of these community colleges for precollege teachers and other
educators. These workshops were funded
jointly by VirginiaView and the National Science Foundation. Each workshop introduced participants to the basics
of GPS, GIS, and remote sensing. The
workshops included approaches to integrating geospatial technologies in the
classroom and were cross-referenced to the applicable Virginia Standards of
Learning.
The workshops were conducted by
Alison Goforth, a high school science teacher from Montgomery County, Virginia,
and Tammy Parece, a Ph.D. student in Virginia Tech’s Geospatial and
Environmental Analysis Program. The workshop’s
two-day program was developed by Alison, Tammy, John McGee - Virginia Tech’s
Geospatial Extension Specialist, and James Campbell - Professor in Virginia
Tech’s Department of Geography. The
workshops were hosted and supported by each of the community colleges’ faculty.
The curriculum was divided into discrete
sessions covering different topics, starting the first day with “What is GPS?” Participants were provided with a history of
GPS, instruction on the use of one particular type of GPS receiver, did an
outside activity with the receiver, and then downloaded and used the gathered
data in Google Earth®. On the
afternoon of the first day, they were introduced to Geocaching, using trackable
VirginiaView geocoins and associated learning lessons.
The morning of the second day was
an introduction to GIS. Participants
were directed to an online GIS program and provide guidance on using the
program; including adding the data acquired with the GPS receivers the previous
day. In addition, participants were
guided through online searches for downloadable and free GIS data. They learned where to find tested lesson
plans, and were assisted while they actually worked through some of these
lesson plans.
The afternoon of the second day
was reserved for remote sensing. Many
participants were familiar with GPS and GIS, but remote sensing was entirely
new. First, they received a brief
history of remote sensing. The initial
activity introduced them to the application of stereoscopes and aerial photos. They then progressed to an activity using
on-the-ground photos as a tool to locate and identify a specific area in Google
Earth®. After remote sensing
using aerial photography, satellite imagery was studied along with applications
of satellite imagery in different analyses.
They explored an online Landsat Imagery viewer. Dr.
Campbell also provided preprocessed Landsat images with different band
combinations, and an additional activity was conducted around these images.
By the afternoon of the second
day, participants realized that they weren’t being introduced to three completely
independent technologies. They
understood these technologies could be used separately but became more powerful
when used jointly.
Each participant received a
binder with all documents used in the two day workshops, a DVD with the
presentations - both in document and in presentation form, supplemental
documents with URLs of websites accessed, and the images used in all
activities.
Participants included high school
teachers representing diverse subjects – e.g. human geography, science, and math. The workshops also attracted middle school
teachers, elementary school teachers, 4-H coordinators, a master naturalist, a
Red-Cross volunteer, and a nursing instructor.
One 4-H coordinator advised that she signed up for the workshops
questioning how these would benefit her in her main focus area – honeybees and
beekeeping. But by the first break, her
thought process was changing, and by the end of the second day, she had made
detailed notes throughout both workshop days on how she was going to implement
each technology and was sure that they were going to jointly change and enhance
her work. Likewise, the nursing
instructor advised that she had the same concerns but as presentations of different
topics and lessons occurred, and discussions on the applicability to different
subjects proceeded (especially uses in medical geography), she felt that she
was on the forefront of technology that was going to revolutionize her
profession. Many participants asked if additional workshops
would occur next summer, continuing beyond the basics that were taught this
summer.
DIGITAL JUICE
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