Geography with a Diferent View Through GIS

Welcome #EUC11

Geography with a ‘different view’ through GIS

Mary Fargher

Institute of Education, University of London

m.fargher@ioe.ac.uk

Overview

• Educational context

• A Geospatial Project

• Findings

• Recommendations• Recommendations

• Next Research Phase

• Discussion

Educational contextGEOGRAPHY AND GIS IN UK SCHOOLS

• A concept -based UK Geography curriculum (2008-)

• GIS mandatory but under-used

• Geographical Association (GA) ‘manifesto’ :

‘Geography with a different view ’ (2009)‘Geography with a different view ’ (2009)

• Geography teachers as ‘ curriculum-makers ’

• Political shift towards ‘ core subject knowledge ’ (2010-)

‘Spatial patterns, distributions and networks can be described, analysed and often explained by reference to social, economic, environmental and political processes. As part

Geographical context

environmental and political processes. As part of their geographical enquiries, pupils should identify these processes and assesstheir impact.’

(UK Geography National Curriculum 2008)

‘Pupils should develop spatial understanding,

Space

‘Pupils should develop spatial understanding, including how the locations of human and physical features are influenced by each other and often interact across space.’

(Geography National Curriculum,2008)

Spatial thinking?

Geography’s ‘sacred cow?’

Mary Fargher IoE, 2011Mary Fargher IoE, 2011

Spatial Thinking

• Can be interpreted in a number of different ways

• Is a crucial concept in geography

• Different perspectives on spatiality significantly • Different perspectives on spatiality significantly influence geography teaching and learning

‘ GIS can be used to analyze river networks on Mars on Monday,study cancer in Bristol on Tuesday, map the underclass of London on Wednesday, analyze the groundwater flow in the Amazon basin on Thursday,and end the week by modelling retail shoppers in Los

SPACE IN SPATIAL SCIENCE

and end the week by modelling retail shoppers in Los Angeles on Friday.’

(Openshaw, 1991)

Subsequent criticisms….

� Positivist origins – Designed (only?) to locate, ide ntify, predict, problem-solve?

� Questionable ethics behind the technology- Commercia lly-orientated, dubious military applications, non-part icipatory?

� ‘Ground Truth : The Social Implications of GIS’ (Ed ited by John Pickles, 1995)Pickles, 1995)

� Limitations to thinking geographically ?

‘Geography is conceived of not as a featureless landscape on which events simply unfold, but as a series of spatial structures which provide a dynamic

SPACE IN THE POSTMODERN

which provide a dynamic context for the processes and practices that give shape to form and culture.’

(Jackson, 1989)

‘Space is generated by interactions and interrelations. Human geographers, then, need to account for the relational spaces that do emerge and they need to understand how particular spatial configurations are generated. But

POST-STRUCTURAL SPACE

configurations are generated. But equally, some attention must be paid to spaces that do not emerge, to the sets of relations that fail to gain any kind of spatial coherence. Relations between relations therefore become important’

(Murdoch, 2006)

‘The first step down the road is to insist that place, in whatever guise, is,like space and time, a social construct. The only interesting question that can be asked is, by what social process(es) is place constructed?(Harvey, 1993)(Harvey, 1993)

Constructing and using Geographical Knowledge with GIS :

- Declarative knowledge

- Procedural knowledge

- Configurational knowledge

(Mark, 1993)

Conventional GIS used in the classroom

ENQUIRY PREDICTION

PROBLEM-SOLVING

ANALYSING SPATIAL PATTERNS LINKING STATISTICAL ANALYSES EG CORRELATION TECHNIQUES

DECLARATIVE GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE IS BROADLY FACTUAL......

http://www.earth3d.org/oldsite/screenshot_nasa_bmng.jpg

http://www.londonuk.org.uk/communities/9/004/006/962/779/images/4525607521.gif

PROCEDURAL GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE ENCOMPASSES ROUTES AND THE PRACTICE OF ‘WAY-FINDING’

CONFIGURATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

The bringing together of different types of geographical knowledge to enable opportunities for deeper learning and

http://www.wlinfo.org.uk/images/geography2.jpg

for deeper learning and understanding

Geovisualisation – the ‘fourth r?’(Goodchild, 2008 )

Using digital geospatial tools – conventional GIS and ‘neogeography’ to develop geographical understanding

A Geospatial Project :Aim

• To explore the role of GIS in constructing knowledg e about place

Objectives:

To critically examine how place can be represented through GISthrough GIS

To explore how teachers and students mediate GIS in studying place

To critically examine outcomes in terms of relation al ‘readings of place’

CLASSROOM-BASED DATA

• Using ArcGIS, ArcExplorer and Google Earth to study geography knowledge construction

• Data collected in 6 schools in GA ‘Spatially Speaki ng’

• Data collected in 2 schools on representing, constructing and conceptualising placeconstructing and conceptualising place

Housing quality data survey using GIS in a school GCSE project: MAPPING THE URBAN STRUCTURE OF BISHOP’S STORTFORD (O’Connor, 2007)

USING CONVENTIONAL GIS TO SUPPORT GEOGRAPHY

Neo geography as :’Volunteered geographies’

(O’Reilly, 2006)

/ Christian Nold ‘ Greenwich Emotion Map’ (2006)

NeoGeography has been defined as a blurring of the distinctions between producer, communicator and consumer of geographic information. The relationshi p between professional and amateur varies across disciplines. The subject matter of geography is fam iliar to everyone, and the acquisition and compilation of geographic data have become vastly easier as techno logy has advanced. (Goodchild, 2009) http://

vimeo.com/9182869vimeo.com/9182869

Neogeography in the Classroom

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS USE GEO-REFERENCED DATA UPLOADED ONTO THE NET

STUDENTS CAN CREATE THEIR OWNDATA

DATA CAN BE ADDED IN A NUMBER OF FORMATS EG TEXT, VIDEO, AUDIO

AID AND NEOGEOGRAPHY – PORT-AU-PRINCE, 2010

(Campbell, 2010)

USING NEOGEOGRAPHY TO SUPPORT GEOGRAPHY : Banda Aceh, Indonesia – Google Earth Images overlain with subsequent YouTube images (Fargher, 2009)

STUDENTS IN THIS ACTIVITY PRODUCE A SERIES OF GEO-TAGGED PICTURES DESCRIBING THE IMPACTS OF THE 2004 TSUNAMI

Teacher Responses on working with hybrid

technology (GIS and Neogeography)

� Students developed beyond the acquisition of spatial

science skills

� More abstract geographical concepts more

transparent via higher quality geovisualisation

� More able responded positively to the academic � More able responded positively to the academic

challenge of using a wide range of geo-data

� Less academic students appeared to perform beyond

teacher expectations when using hybrid GIS

(Fargher, 2011)

Research Findings (Fargher, 2011)

• The technical limitations of conventional GIS have significant impacts on constructing richer place knowledge

• Successful use of GIS remains significantly dependent on TPACK* http://www.tpck.org/

• Large scale digital map space is important for • Large scale digital map space is important for developing relational ‘readings of place’

• Shifting emphasis towards teacher geographical subject knowledge enhances the use of GIS in the classroom

• Hybrid GIS combines the rigour of spatial science GIS with richer qualitative representations of plac e in geographical thinking

• (Fargher, 2011)

Recommendations

• Embracing the analytical capacity of conventional GIS selectively

• Exploring the educational potential of ‘public geographies’ through ‘Web 2.0 meets GIS’

Developing opportunities for ‘Geography • Developing opportunities for ‘Geography curriculum-making’ for subject specialists with hybrid GIS

(Fargher, 2011)

Interconnected Place

• ‘One way of seeing ‘places’ is as on the surface of maps: Samarkand is there, the United States of America (f inger outlining boundary) is here. But, to escape from an imagination of space as a surface is to abandon als o that view of place. If space is rather simultaneity of s tories-so-far, then places are collections of those stories, articulations of the wider power-geometries of spac e. Their character will be a product of these intersections within that wider setting, and of what is made of them. An d too, of the non-meetings- up, the disconnections and the rel ations not established, the exclusions. All this contribut es to the specificity of place.’

• (Massey, 2005, p.131)

Next Research Phase (2011-

• Pilot ‘Geography with a different view through GIS’ using hybrid GIS

• 2 key foci:

• Teaching key geography concepts through ArcGIS, ArcExplorer and Google EarthArcExplorer and Google Earth

• The role of geography subject specialist knowledge in using GIS to enhance teaching and learning of ‘relational place’

Discussion

Thank You