Spring 2007 231

Theory and Research in Social EducationSpring 2007, Volume 35, Number 2, pp. 231-255© College and University Faculty Assemblyof National Council for the Social Studies

Using Geographic Information System (GIS) Technology to Enhance Elementary Students’ Geographic Understanding

Eui-kyung ShinNorthern Illinois University

AbstractUsing a qualitative approach, this study investigated how the use of GIS technol-ogy affected fourth graders’ geography learning and understanding of place. For this study, a GIS module was developed and implemented. The data gathering included transcripts from video and audio recordings of classroom instructions, interviews with the students and the teacher, field notes and students’ work. Findings of the study include that the use of GIS influenced the students’ geog-raphy learning by enhancing the whole group discussion, helping them connect to their prior experiences, and assisting them in making in-depth observations. Thus, the students learned about place by first recognizing familiar places and then expanding by defining the relationships between those places. In building understanding of place, the students used various thinking skills as well as map skills holistically and simultaneously as the situation warranted, rather than hierarchically when GIS technology was used.

Introduction

Geography is “concerned with understanding the spatial dimen-sion of human experience (space and place)” (Geography Education Standards Project, 1994, p. 31) and offers a framework for studying our world (Macken, 2003). Understanding space and place plays a vital role in students’ lives; however, how students learn about spatial aspects is largely unknown. Educators know little about how students build understanding of geography (Alibrandi, 2003; Gregg & Leinhardt, 1994; Gritzner, 2003; Leinhardt, Stainton, & Bausmith, 1998; Lloyd, 2000). Other than learning about maps, there has been little research on issues of learning geography as well as cognitive processes (Gardner, 1990). Consequently, there is a need to investigate how the cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning in geography affect understanding of places (Gregg & Leinhardt, 1994).

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In the past decades, the infusion of computers into classrooms has brought an improvement in geography education. Since geography is naturally visual and heavily assisted by graphic images, this compan-ionship initiated the development of geography-related technology, and using technology helps students build spatial cognition (Linn, 1994; Gersmehl, 2005). For example, Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer-based set of procedures by which geographically referenced information can be assembled, stored, analyzed, manipu-lated, and displayed (Getis, Getis & Fellmann, 2000). Many educators in geography have supported the use of GIS in elementary and secondary education (Alibrandi, 2003; Audet & Ludwig, 2000; Baker & White, 2003; Bednarz, 2004; Geography Education Standards Project, 1994; Mason & Alibrandi, 1999; Shin, 2006; West, 2003); however, the lack of devel-opment and implementation of GIS curriculum has been continually reported as a challenge to integrate GIS into the K-12 settings, especially at the elementary level (Baker & Bednarz, 2003; Bednarz, 2004; Bednarz & Audet, 1999; Kerski, 2001; Kerski, 2003). For that reason, there has been little research conducted to examine how GIS integration affects K-12 student geography learning (Baker & Bednarz, 2003; Bednarz & Ludwig, 1997). According to Bednarz and Ludwig (1997),

Cognitive concerns that are central to the development of education application of GIS technology at K-12 have been ignored. It is more difficult to synthesize what is known about spatial learning in general because of the depth of research in this topic. (p. 127)

Therefore, a GIS instructional module targeting fourth grade students was developed and implemented for this study. The research ques-tions used to guide this study were: 1) How does the use of GIS affect fourth grade students’ geography learning? and 2) How do students cognitively develop their geographic understanding of places when GIS technology is used?

Using GIS for Teaching Geography in Elementary Classrooms

In teaching social science, the role of technology has grown and educators are looking for ways to integrate more technology to make student learning more meaningful (Rose & Fernlund, 1997). Much research reported that using technology in social studies instruction motivates students and helps them engage in more challenging tasks (Heafner, 2004; Keiper, 1999b). Technology-based instruction, if it is well-used, provides opportunities for powerful social studies instruc-tion because it offers students a broad range of content, concepts, generalizations and ideas (Rose & Fernlund, 1997).

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In the study of geography, GIS technology has been recognized as an important tool that can help improve geography learning (Keiper, 1999a; Kerski, 2003; Wiegand, 2003). Many geography educators believe that there are benefits of using GIS for geography instruction. GIS is considered as an effective teaching tool in classrooms because it pro-motes students’ geographic skills and leads to more dynamic learning and daring teaching experiences in geography education (Audet & Ludwig, 2000; Keiper, 1999b; Nellis, 1994). Kieper (1999b) has described GIS as one of the most powerful instructional resources for analyzing geographic data. In fact, using GIS allows very different types of data sets with geographical information to be combined that is not possible with databases or maps alone (Deal, 1998).

Combining geographic data and maps using GIS provides stu-dents opportunities to work with actual data that deals with their local surroundings. Working with local data facilitates students’ spatial cognition and motivation to learn about surrounding places (Alibrandi, 2003; Keiper, 1999a) because the data provides personal connections to students and students can expand their spatial dimension from local surroundings to further environments.

National social studies and geography standards acknowledge the importance of using GIS for teaching social science. For example, GIS technology is linked to the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) Standards’ ten themes (National Council for Social Studies, 1994). Emphasizing the connection of GIS to NCSS themes, Alibrandi (2003) stated, “GIS has a role in more than half of them directly, and argueably all of them indirectly, since human experience is grounded on the planet and every political unit requires some kind of spatial frame…” (p. 13). The National Geography Education Standards indicate that GIS allows students to ask questions of spatial data and to operate spatial procedure with a spatial database. This is a critical geographic skill to become a geographically informed person, which is the goal of geography educa-tion (Geography Education Standards Project, 1994).

In spite of promoting the use of GIS in K-12 education for decades, reporting about the implementation of GIS in K-12 educa-tion has not been very successful (Alibrandi, 2003; Baker & Bednarz, 2003; Bednarz, 2004; Bednarz & Audet, 1999; Bednarz & Ludwig, 1997; Kerski, 2001; Kerski, 2003). The identified reasons for the lack of success included the “perceived complexity of software” (Kerski, 2003, p. 130) and the lack of school-curriculum-centered and user-friendly GIS instructional materials (Bednarz & Audet, 1999; Keiper 1999a). Since a certain level of spatial cognitive skills are necessary to operate GIS technology (Lee, 2001), teachers tend to perceive the GIS technology as more complex than it actually is. While teachers are more concerned about the technical difficulty, students perceive the technical difficulty as less challenging, or not challenging at all (Shin,

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2006). Fitzpatrick (2000) explains that even first grade students have used GIS and have solved challenging spatial problems after only a few minutes of introduction.

There has also been an issue of finding a place for GIS in the local and state curriculum and finding appropriate curriculum ma-terials. This is because it is difficult to convince school teachers that GIS should be used in the classroom if GIS is not closely connected to the school curriculum (Bednarz & Audet, 1999). Mapping Our World, published by Environmental System Research Institution (ESRI), is a well-used resource that helps students learn and operate GIS tech-nology. However, its target is only secondary level students, and it is criticized for the lack of teacher involvement other than technical assistance (Bednarz, 2004).

In order to increase the relevance to the school curriculum, the GIS module in this study incorporated state history, which reflects the state’s social studies standards. In addition, local data that dealt with the students’ surroundings were used to provide information relevant to the students’ immediate environment (Keiper, 1999a). In addition, in this study GIS technology was used to facilitate students’ learning based on students’ prior knowledge by solving problems and answer-ing meaningful questions (Thomas & Boysen, 1984) because integrating technology in social studies education should be a development tool rather than just using technology itself (Doolittle & Hicks, 2003).

Geographic Understanding

Some classic cognitive theories explain how students construct knowledge, and developmental stages have been widely used to explain it. For example, Piaget (1970) explained that the construction of knowl-edge continues until death according to the age, from the sensorymotor stage to formal operational stage. In contrast, some scholars argue that the cognitive stages are misleading and promote “stage prejudice” (Dickinson & Lee, 1984, p. 118). Instead, some scholars focus on study-ing how students build their understanding of the discipline areas in general, such as history (Barton, 2001; Barton & Levstik, 1996), rather than following pre-conceived developmental stages.

Generally, how students build their understanding can be very difficult to comprehend. A person’s understanding is built in very complex ways and processes rather than in a simple clear manner. Understanding is developed gradually by building mental images in one’s mind. It also varies by individuals and their personal interests and experiences (Gardner & Boix-Mansilla, 1994; Perkins, 1991, 1992, 1993; Simmons, 1994; Unger1994; Zohorik, 1997). Because of this varia-tion, there is no clear-cut way of building someone’s understanding or decoding it uniformly. It is not a matter of whether it exists or not,

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instead it is more important to find what and how he/she understands and demonstrates such understanding (Gardner & Boix-Mansilla, 1994; Perkins, 1991, 1992, 1993).

Although there are many different ways of looking at “understand-ing,” most scholars agree that understanding is more than acquiring simple knowledge (Wiske, 1998; Wiske, Sick & Wirsig, 2001). Under-standing often implies students’ active use of knowledge, and in-depth understanding is valued more than memorizing isolated events. Stu-dents should be able to build on what they already know to develop an understanding (Bednarz, 2004; Levstik & Barton, 2001; Perkins, 1992).

In the study of geography, geographic understanding has not been clearly defined yet. Dando (1990) describes geographic understanding as “interplay of complex mental constructs and sensory impressions” (p. 39). Some scholars use the term “understanding” to refer to gain-ing geographic knowledge (Lambert, 2002), developing higher-level thinking skills (White & Rumsey, 1993), or building spatial cognition (Hartshorne, 1990; Whiteford, 1980).1

The National Geography Standards describe geographic under-standing as “understanding of the spatial contexts of people, places, and environment on Earth” (p. 21). They emphasize that geographic understanding must be set into real life contexts through learning three interrelated components: subject matter, skills, and perspectives. All three components should emphasize answering “how” and “why” rather than “what” (Geography Education Standards Project, 1994).

Although the use of “geographic understanding” has not been clearly defined, the term has been agreeably used when it implies more than dealing with factual and plain knowledge (Sui, 1995; Geography Education Standard project, 1994; Lemberg & Stoltman, 1999). It entails active thinking processes that encourage students to use what they know to connect to their prior knowledge and new information and to construct their own scheme of space and place. Therefore, in this study, the researcher characterizes “geographic understanding” as active thinking related to geographic subject matter, skills and perspectives that concern space and place.

Methodology

The primary purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the rich interpersonal, social, and cultural contexts of the instruction when GIS technology was implemented in a fourth grade classroom (Soltis, 1990). In this study, the researcher took the role of participant observer to learn firsthand how the students responded to the GIS instruction, to see patterns of students’ geography learning, and to develop a quality of trust with participants (Glesne, 1999). For example, the researcher was present in the classroom frequently, even before the data gather-

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ing started, and provided assistance for GIS activities during the data gathering period. However, the teacher delivered the lessons and was in charge of classroom instruction.

Setting and ParticipantsThis study site was chosen based on two criteria: 1) the school needed

to represent a diverse group of students from a lower to middle class neigh-borhood and 2) the level of technology use at the school needed to be in a middle range, which means students have some experience using technol-ogy in general but not GIS. These criteria were exclusively employed in Columbia, South Carolina. As a result, Carnegie Hill Elementary School2 in Columbia, South Carolina, was chosen for this research. The total enroll-ment of this school was 592, and 58.7% of the students came from below the poverty level (South Carolina Department of Education, 2003).

Mrs. Morris, the teacher who volunteered to participate in the project, had been teaching fourth graders for four years at this school. During the meeting, she indicated that she was a member of the South Carolina Social Studies Council. However, she did not have any mem-bership or affiliation related to geography and did not consider herself as an active member of the organization. She said that she liked teaching social studies and understood the importance of teaching geography in a social studies curriculum. She had also incorporated some technology, mainly Internet and educational software, into her teaching; however, she had not used GIS technology prior to the research.

Twenty-one students participated in the instruction, but only eighteen students participated in this research since three students did not submit their parents’ permission. Fifteen students (out of eighteen) were African-Americans and three students were Caucasians. They came mostly from lower to middle class families. Since the teacher had incorporated technology into her teaching, the students had previously worked with computers.

EquipmentThree computers were used for this research project. One laptop

and one desktop computer were used by the students. Another desk-top computer that was connected to the TV was used as the teacher demonstration station for GIS instruction. Since there were only two computers for student use, students worked in groups during the GIS activities and took turns using the computer stations.

For this study, a ready-to-use GIS module was developed using Ar-cView 3.2 software. Since ArcView 3.2 allows imbedding and displaying of multimedia components, several graphics such as pictures of the students’ school, streets in Columbia, etc. were incorporated in the GIS module.

The GIS module was designed to be as user-friendly as possible, so extensive training was not necessary (Keiper, 1999a; Lloyd, 2001). In

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fact, no intensive training was provided to the teacher or the students other than the researcher’s demonstration of the use of GIS functions to the teacher. In this module, GIS functions were introduced from easy to more challenging functions as the lessons progressed.

One of the difficulties of working with GIS could be locating the appropriate data for the project. For this module, a historical map and census data of Columbia were digitized and included in a GIS data-base. Other data were downloaded from state government and local university websites and the ArcView 3.2 package.

GIS InstructionFour different lessons were developed and taught as a unit in

the GIS module. The unit focuses on the changes and growth in the students’ city, state and country. An overview of each GIS lesson fol-lows in Table 1. In the first lesson, a GIS activity dealing with growth and changes in people and transportation in the City of Columbia is developed. Students compare the old Columbia with the current Co-lumbia and examine the growth patterns.

In the second lesson, a GIS activity dealing with changes in the mode of transportation and population distribution of South Carolina is developed. Students compare the mode of transportation in 1790, 1860 and 2000 and examine highly populated counties in 1790, 1860 and 2000. Then, they explain the relationship between the highly populated counties and the changes in the mode of transportation.

In the third lesson, a GIS activity dealing with population growth and movement patterns in the United States allows students to com-pare the location of the 50 largest cities (in terms of population) in the United States in 1790, 1850, and 2000 and examine the major modes of transportation in these time periods. Then, they explain the relation-ship to the population movement.

The fourth lesson is an open-ended inquiry project. Students produce a map of South Carolina or the United States. A list of data is given to the students, so they can choose a topic based on their interest. Then, students generate the map(s) of chosen topics, ex-amine the information on the map(s), explain the reasons why the map(s) are presented the way they are and make a class presentation of their work.

Since the classroom was equipped with only two computers for students’ use and the students had to take turns, it was necessary to develop other activities that the students could be engaged in when computer stations were not available to the group. Therefore, addi-tional materials were selected based on relevance to the GIS activities and the developmental appropriateness. These materials were used for learning stations as well as whole group discussions to facilitate the students’ learning of the information on the GIS maps.

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No specific directions were given to Mrs. Morris in terms of utilizing the GIS module in her classroom, to allow her maximum freedom in using this GIS module. The researcher clarified issues and concerns that the teacher had about the GIS module and encouraged her to reconstruct the lessons if necessary. As a result, several changes were made, such as using students’ sketch maps for discussions and changing the order of the lesson discussions based on the students’ work pace and the school’s schedule changes.

The classroom instruction was completed in 13 class sessions over three weeks, and each session lasted 40 to 75 minutes. During the instruction, the teacher divided students into seven different groups with three randomly selected students in each group. These teams worked together during small group activities. Membership in these groups remained the same throughout the study.

Data GatheringMultiple sources were used to collect data to enhance validity and

to triangulate the data (Frenkel & Wallen, 1996): transcriptions from video recordings and audio recordings, interviews with the teacher, interviews with the students, artifacts from the students’ works and the researcher’s field notes.

Two video recorders were used to capture whole group instruc-tion and GIS activities. When the video recorders were filming the computer stations, audio recording was used to capture the conversa-tions among the students while they were working at other stations. After recording, these videotapes and audiotapes were transcribed. A total of twenty-six videotapes and sixty-eight audiotapes were used for discourse analysis.

Interviews with the teacher were conducted at the end of each session. The interviews were informal and included her reflection on the session and her plans for the next session. These interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The interviews with students were conducted as group interviews (a total of six groups) because of the time constraint. The students’ interviews occurred one time after com-pleting the unit. The interview questions specifically addressed their experiences using GIS, challenges, and favorite activities.

All artifacts produced by the students, such as worksheets, sketch maps and GIS maps during the instruction period were col-lected. All learning stations, including GIS computer stations, provided worksheets for the students to answer and they were collected after completion of each station activity. Students were asked to draw sketch maps before and after the lessons on Columbia, South Carolina and the United States. A total of six sketch maps from each student were collected. The students’ GIS map(s) and reports produced during the inquiry project were also collected and analyzed.

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Lastly, the researcher took field notes during the instructional period and when interviewing the teacher. After taking initial notes, more detailed notes were taken while watching the videotapes of the sessions. These field notes were also used for analyzing data.

Data AnalysisThe data analysis in this study reflected two layers of examining

the data. First, the researcher analyzed the data specifically related to the GIS activities to determine how the use of GIS affected the students’ geography learning. This GIS related data set included the transcripts and artifacts from the GIS activities (including teacher’s demonstration), the transcripts from interviews with the teachers and the students that particularly address their experience of working with GIS, and the parts of researcher’s field notes that are related to the GIS computer stations.

Second, the researcher analyzed the entire data set, including transcripts of whole group instruction and small group instruction, even when the students were not using the GIS technology, as well as interviews, artifacts, and field notes to learn how the students generally built their understanding of place when GIS technology was used.

In both levels of analysis, the researcher primarily used discourse analysis. Transcripts of the interaction between the teacher and the students and among the students themselves were analyzed using a constant-comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to code and identify emerging themes.

First, working with the GIS related data set, the data were read and re-read multiple times. Then, the researcher coded them openly to find categories regarding the influence of using GIS. Once data were initially coded, all the coded data were re-examined to determine whether they represented similar categories. In the third stage, the coded data were organized in a way that reflected either similar categories or opposite categories to look for emerging themes. The first two findings in this research have emerged from these themes.

Analyzing the entire data set mainly followed the same pro-cedure as the GIS related data set; however, it was a more intensive process because of the vast amount of data. For example, the data were read and re-read numerous times and then openly coded re-garding the students’ understanding of places. Once the data was coded, then the researcher used color-coding strategies to keep track of all the coding. Then, the color-coded sections were extracted and re-examined to determine if the coded sections represented similar categories. The data were re-organized to reflect similar categories to find emerging themes. These themes are presented as the last two findings.

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Limitations in Analyzing the Data As indicated in the literature review, understanding what and

how students know about place is challenging because students’ think-ing processes are unpredictable and fluent (Grant, 2005). In contrast to an interviewing situation in which a researcher can ask specific questions and use follow-ups to clarify the responses, listening to stu-dents’ conversation in real life settings, like during the instruction in a classroom, is more challenging. Students frequently say what they do not know, and often they do not verbalize what they know. In addi-tion, it is sometimes difficult to know what they mean without know-ing the contexts of the situations because it does not match what they say. Although the researcher interviewed the students once after their projects were completed, asking specific questions to clarify meaning of the individual students’ comments were not appropriate, since it was a group interview, and time was limited.

In analyzing this data, therefore, the researcher’s contextual knowledge was used on many occasions. For example, on some oc-casions, a student’s comment itself did not clearly demonstrate the thinking path; however, when the researcher recognized the meaning based on the context of the classroom situation, then the comment was coded accordingly. The researcher also acknowledges that there could be multiple ways of interpreting the same comments from a student. When these cases occurred, the researcher used the best judgment within the context of the situation.

Findings

The Influence of Using GIS TechnologyFinding 1: The use of GIS enhanced what the students learned in the whole group discussion. However, the GIS technology was not able to deliver the geography contents that were meant to be taught.

The whole group discussion and the explanation from the teacher guided the GIS activity, and the GIS activity enhanced the students’ learning from the whole group discussion. When the students learned content knowledge from the whole group instruction, all groups were able to answer the questions on the worksheet while working with GIS technology. However, only manipulating the GIS maps was insufficient for the students to grasp the content of the lesson. For example, Mrs. Morris introduced the first lesson by reading a children’s book, The Little House, to help the students understand the concept of growth of a city. The book illustrates the process of developing a city by telling a story about a little house that was once located in quiet farmland but then became the center of a city. After reading the book, Mrs. Morris led the whole group discussion about how a city grows: more people mov-ing in, more roads being built, and more buildings being constructed.

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Then, Mrs. Morris connected what happened to the little house to the City of Columbia by examining the GIS maps showing Columbia in 1893 and the Columbia city limits in 2000.

During the GIS activity on the computer, the students were asked to answer questions such as 1) was your school within the Columbia city limits in 1893, 2) was the location of your home within the Columbia city limits in 1893, 3) is there any size difference be-tween Columbia in 1893 and 2000, 4) how have people and streets changed over time, 5) in which direction has Columbia grown the most, and 6) what seems to influence the growth patterns. The students were eager to answer the first five questions and seemed to be confident about the answers that they provided. For instance, Lonnie, Paul and Curtis were working on answering the questions on a computer:

Paul: [looking at the computer screen] What is that?Curtis: That’s downtown. That’s the Main Street.Paul: Where do you live?Lonnie: I live right here. I live back there. Curtis: Where’s Carnegie Hill Road?Lonnie: Right there.Paul: Oh, right there, right?Lonnie: Yeah, there’s Treywood [the name of a street near the

school].Curtis: Let’s get off the road to see where Carnegie Hill Road’s

at. That’s our school. Lonnie: [Reading the question] Was your home within the city

limits in 1893?Curtis: No, because it’s all the way over here.Lonnie: [Reading the question] Is there a size difference between

Columbia in 1893 and the one in 2000?Paul and Curtis: Yeh!Lonnie: [Reading the direction] Which one’s larger?Paul: Right there. This one. Lonnie: [Reading the direction] In which direction has Columbia

grown the most?Curtis: Um, east, east, east.Lonnie: I think that’s northeast.Paul: No, that’s east, that’s east.

As the above conversation indicated, examining the GIS maps on the computer seemed to be successful and smooth. By working with local data, which included their personal places such as home and school, the students were able to trace the growth of the city. Later, they used this knowledge to expand their understanding

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of Columbia in relation to South Carolina and the United States. However, they could not answer the last question about the direc-tion of Columbia’s growth.

Although Mrs. Morris demonstrated how to bring up the different layers, such as rivers, lakes, railroads, and interstates, she did not have any discussions with the students about the factors that affected the growth of Columbia. When the students examined the layers (rivers, lakes, railroads, and interstates) presented on the left side of the GIS map, they could not explain the reason the City of Columbia has grown in a particular direction. To the teacher and the researcher, the con-nection of the growth pattern and the influence of the interstates were obvious, since only interstates (out of four different layers) matched the shape of the city. However, the students were not able to explain the pattern of the city’s growth, instead they focused on the reasons for growth and then finally gave up. Here is an example from the same group who successfully answered all the other questions trying to answer the last question.

Lonnie: [Reading the direction] What seems to influence the growth patterns?

Paul: Make the town grow…Curtis: More people.Paul: Yeah, more people. Make a whole list. Make more people,

something else.Lonnie: More people, um…Paul: That’s more people… if you want more people, then there

would have been more houses, then there would have been more…

Curtis: Put more houses. Lonnie: More houses is [are] more people.Paul: Oh! Lonnie: OK, now go to the next.

When they were asked which direction Columbia would grow in the future, their answers included multiple directions, north, west, north-east, and southwest, that did not seem to make sense. When they were asked why they thought the way they answered, their answers were not clear or did not make sense, for example “there are buildings” or “it’s empty.” It seems that the students did not grasp the idea of the influencing factor for Columbia’s growth, due to the lack of instruction from the teacher.

There is another example in which Mrs. Morris discussed with the students the location of big cities in the United States in three different time periods: 1790, 1850 and 2000. The pattern clearly showed that the establishment of the cities in the United States started on the east coast

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and moved to the west. However, she did not explain the concept of re-gion to the students. While working on the GIS activity, even though the direction given was to identify the regions, all groups were writing down the names of states to answer the questions. Here is an example from the same group expressing their confusion between region and religion:

Paul: All right, we learned that….Lonnie: We learned that the most popular region?Paul: What’s the most popular region? What do you mean?Lonnie: Good question. What’s the most popular region?Curtis: Religion. Religion… Oh, never mind.

Although Mrs. Morris and the researcher expected the students to be able to identify regions by observing different clustered areas on the GIS maps, five groups (out of six) were not able to understand the concept of region.

The whole group instructions played the role of providing the students background knowledge that they could build on. Then, the students applied and practiced this knowledge while working with GIS. When the teacher failed to provide the ground work for scaffold-ing, trial and error with the GIS maps did not help the students learn the geographic concepts.

Finding 2: When the GIS technology was used, students demonstrated in-depth observations and were highly motivated to make connections with their prior knowledge.

During the instructional periods, the students exhibited a great deal of excitement about using the computers for the GIS activities. Students often expressed their interest when the teacher showed rec-ognizable places on the GIS maps by making comments like “Cool!” “Wow!” and “Goaaa!” A week after the lessons started, Mrs. Morris decided to use the GIS computer activity as a part of their reward sys-tem; for example, if the students behaved well, they could have five more minutes on the computer during the GIS activities. During the interview with Mrs. Morris, she also explained the level of the students’ engagement with the GIS activities by saying,

The computer was great. I think they really enjoyed that. They loved the computer; they had no problem with the software at all. They were looking into the box [themes] and playing with it. They were really into it!

The students demonstrated not only how much they were motivated, but also how deeply they observed and made deeper connections while working with the GIS maps.

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After the second lesson, Mrs. Morris was pleased with how the GIS activity went, “I think we did great. They were thinking more de-tails.” Then she explained about several students who were observant during the lesson:

Dawn hardly ever makes any observations that are on target. She really made some very, very deep observations which I was amazed. Shawna is another one who is so superficial in noticing things. But Shawna had some really good things to say. That was a really good connection; very good to make that good observation.

Some of the students in the class who had not been very critical thinkers were highly engaged in the GIS activities. When the students became involved in in-depth thinking, they seemed to be enthusiastic about making connections to their prior knowledge.

When they were examining the GIS maps for the colonial time periods, which the students had learned about previously, the students made various connections based on what they learned about the his-tory of the city, the state, and the country. For example, during the lesson on South Carolina, although it was not discussed during the whole group instruction, the students made connections to what they learned about the thirteen colonies. Two groups mentioned bringing slaves from Africa as an example of using boats, and Charleston as the capital of South Carolina in the early days. Here is an example of a group’s conversation showing the relationship with England in the early days, while working with the GIS maps.

Brianna: South Carolina counties? Cathy: Counties with more people. Ok, there is 1790. Charleston!

That has the most people.Brianna: Why is it Charleston? Teacher: Why many people live there?Cathy: Oh, because it’s near the coast and a lot of people like

the coast.Teacher: In 1790, where did people get the all the things they

need? Cathy: From England!Teacher: How? Cathy: By boat! Many people live there because many ships came

from England.

The students sometimes made comments from what they know that has little relevance to the information on the GIS map; however, it showed that they were actively thinking about what they were learning and making connections to their previous knowledge.

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Cognitive Process of Understanding PlacesFinding 3. The students’ learning of place seemed to begin with a simple recognition of places and then they developed their sense of place by defining the relationships among those places.

The students recognized some places they knew in their daily lives on the GIS map. Then, they started to build their understand-ing of places by making connections between what they saw on the GIS map and their personal experiences. When they first saw the GIS maps with little dots, the dots representing places did not mean much to them. However, when they were able to make some connections between the dots on the map and specific places they were familiar with, the dots on the map suddenly became meaningful. For example, when the teacher showed the map of Columbia and displayed the picture of a mall where the students usually went, they made comments like “I know that place. My mom go[es] there to work” and “I went there yesterday.” When Mrs. Morris showed the picture of the students’ school and their classroom, they excitedly said, “Look, it’s our school,” and “Wow! It’s our portable.”

During instruction, the students seemed to notice the places they previously visited or where their relatives live. For example, in their second lesson, their discussion started with Charleston. The students made comments, “Oh, I went there” and “I went there on a field trip.” Also, when they were examining the map of South Carolina in 2000, Megan recognized Spartanburg on the map and said, “My dad lives there.” Whenever the places where students had personal connections were presented, they were eager to share their experiences.

As the lesson progressed, the students had opportunities to think about their city and the different places in their states and the country. Initially, the students did not seem to understand the relationship between city, county, and school district. Although they had heard the names of Richland County and Richland School District, the meanings of those phrases were not clear to them. After they read the book, From Here to There, the teacher led the students in discussing concepts from small places such as my house, and expanding to my street, to my town, to my county, etc. At that point, Lonnie asked the question, “Is district smaller than city?” Mrs. Morris noticed his struggle and responded “We are Richland School District. Is that what you are talking about? That’s an area that the school takes care of.” Then, they had a lengthy discussion about how people decide where a school district should be. Other students also asked questions to clarify the relationship between district and city during the discussion. Mrs. Morris’s response was not a direct answer to Lonnie’s question, but he seemed to understand the relationships between the city of Columbia, Rich-land County and Richland School District. During the subsequent

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interview with the teacher, she said, “Somebody asked about county and town and district. I thought it was cool because they see how these are tied to the population.”

The students shaped their understanding of the city of Columbia and Charleston and the state of South Carolina by comparing them to other places in the United States. In the post instruction interviews with the students, some of the students mentioned that there were many states that were bigger and had more people than South Caro-lina. For example, Kim said, “The bigger states have more people than South Carolina. Some states have more people than South Carolina and have got a lot of places.” Although Kim’s explanation was not well articulated, what she meant was that there were many states that were more populous than South Carolina. Paul also applied what he learned from the lesson on the major cities in the United States to help him understand the city of Columbia and made comments like “Columbia is not a major city,” when compared to other US cities. In contrast, Rhonda found out that Charleston was considered a large city in the country in 1790 and said, “There was a time when we were almost at the top because of Blacks.” To understand the relationship between those areas, the students needed to understand those places as parts of the bigger picture, so they could define the relationships to fit into their existing schema.

Finding 4: In understanding place, the students used various thinking skills as well as map skills holistically and simultaneously as the situation warranted, rather than hierarchically when GIS technology was used.

Piaget’s developmental theory (1970) and Bloom’s taxonomy (as cited in Eggen & Kauchak, 1999) suggest that cognitive development is hierarchical. These theories imply that students have to first learn the basic skills in order to use more advanced skills.

However, in this study, the students built their understanding of places in a more holistic way. In other words, the process of build-ing understanding was not a linear process. Instead, the students expanded their understanding of places by using various thinking skills and map skills simultaneously as the situation warranted. The instruction provided many opportunities for the students to develop their understanding of their city, state and the country by using various thinking skills and map skills, and the ways they used them did not show a specific pattern.

Throughout the instructional process in this study, the students were asked to examine the GIS maps. When they examined the maps on the computer by over laying different themes, they initially used their observation skills; however, they concurrently employed other necessary skills to understand the patterns of development of places. For instance, Tiffany and Dawn initially observed the GIS maps show-

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ing railroads, and then they overlaid the map showing major cities. They examined both maps to understand the relationship between city growth and the major mode of transportation.

Teacher: People spread out. That’s right. Where did the cities go? What do they follow? Anything, sort of?

Dawn: Oh! It became near to the line…Teacher: What was the major mode of transportation? Dawn: Train.Teacher: [Overlaying the map] Do the cities follow the rail-

roads? Tiffany and Dawn: Yeah! Teacher: So the major influence would be…Dawn: Oh, train! So the railroads and trains coming in, and more

people coming in.

Dawn initially examined the maps by observing and comparing two different GIS map layers, and then she made a connection to her previ-ous knowledge from the earlier discussion about Columbia’s growth to explain the distribution patterns of the cities.

During the inquiry project, analyzing the maps was an essential step to decide whether the students were going to reject or confirm the hypotheses. In the process, they used their hypothesizing skill as well as observing, analyzing and comparing and contrasting. For example, Lonnie’s prediction was that there would be a greater Black population than White population in the United States. However, when he examined the two maps carefully to determine which group has a larger population, he found out that there were more Whites than Blacks. He said:

This is weird. But definitely, the White, the more White[s] than Blacks. But look how much it expand[s]. And look how much all it’s crumble up there. But this one doesn’t have Georgia and this one has Georgia. But this one doesn’t have these two states and this one has.

Lonnie hypothesized about the Black and White populations, and then analyzed the GIS maps by observing and making comparisons between those two maps.

Like Lonnie, the students also compared and contrasted their pre-dictions with their results of the inquiry project. Most of the groups found that their maps did not look like what they had predicted. For example, Kim commented, “I didn’t really think the United States would have less Hispanics than they do Blacks.” Again, Kim’s comment is the result of using map skills for examining, analyzing, comparing and contrasting.

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The students also evaluated their own answers to verify whether the answers fit the information they found on the map. For example, Megan tried to answer why California, Texas and New York had the largest population on her map. She remarked to the other group members that the reason might be because they are closer to the ocean. She tried to verify her answer by looking at the location of those three states and their proximity to the ocean. Then, Megan said, “Well… Texas is like… that’s not coast.” In this evaluation process, Megan analyzed the maps and compared dif-ferent states.

Since the students had to read the maps first to analyze them, map skills such as reading map keys and the use of color frequently assisted the students’ learning about the places. On population dis-tribution maps, sometimes the colors on maps were the same on the two maps, but represented different numbers of people in those areas. So if their maps looked alike by color, the students had to compare the numbers on the map keys. During the post instruction interview, Curtis explained his challenge during the lessons, which was reading the map keys.

Let’s say that we got the same amount, like they had people that were the same like Texas, you know, New York, we would get messed up the numbers on this side cause we couldn’t understand why are they the same [color].

As Curtis’s comments indicated, his group used advanced map reading skills to examine the information on the GIS maps. After examining map keys and colors many times on the GIS map, the students seemed to be more confident using newly learned map skills. When they shared their post instruction sketch maps with classmates, they explained,

Rhonda: I put here at the bottom what transportation, population. That’s the [key] category. [Explaining the keys] Population, I put dark for more people, light gray for in between, and white for no people and the transportation.

Megan: I did the United States, purple is major cities in 2000 and this is the spot where the major city is, and I did the key thing here.

The final inquiry project reports confirm that the students developed their understanding of population distribution patterns in the United States by using multiple thinking skills such as observing, analyzing, comparing and contrasting as well as connecting to the prior knowledge simultaneously (see Table 2).

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Table 2. Sample inquiry project report

Inquiry QuestionWhich states have most Blacks and which states have most His-panics?

Finding Patterns The Blacks have the same as the White in California.Did not have same amount.More Blacks in US are large.There are more lite[light] color on Hispanic than Blacks.There is more dark colors on the Blacks map than Hispanic.

Final ExplanationWe saw that there are more Blacks in the USA because there are more states colored dark on that map. There is less dark colors on the Hispanic map. The more Blacks were found in the east. We think they are there because back in the old days, plantations were covered with Blacks. We found the most Hispanic in the south-west. We thought they were there because it is close to Mexico.

Note. This sample has remained faithful to the participants’ use of language.

In analyzing how the students learned about their city, state and coun-try, the researcher learned that there were no noticeable patterns of using specific thinking skills in building their understanding of those places. Although the instructional strategy in each activity encouraged using specific thinking skills (analyzing or comparing maps…etc.), even during those times, the students concurrently used other skills as well as map skills from “so called” simple basic skills to higher-level thinking skills.

Implications

The primary implication of these findings is that the use of GIS affected students’ learning in geography. Despite common concerns about using technology, including learning about technology and/or using technology meaninglessly (Strickland, 2005), GIS use in this study positively influenced the students by helping them make in-depth observations and connect them to their personal experiences and prior knowledge. Thus, the use of GIS enhanced the teacher-led instruction by providing opportunities for the students to manipulate local data. The findings from this research indicated that the GIS technology can be used to facilitate geography learning in elementary classrooms.

A second implication is that although GIS use can positively affect students’ geography learning, the role of teacher is still critical. Even when technology is used, teachers still need to facilitate students’ learn-ing by providing prompts and guiding their thinking processes. As the findings of this study imply, the use of GIS can provide meaningful

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information; however, providing an opportunity to manipulate the data only is not sufficient for students’ geography learning. The teacher was the one who decided what and how to introduce information to enhance students’ geography learning, even when GIS technology was used.

A third implication is that, in teaching space and place, teach-ers need to provide students opportunities to connect and clarify the relationships among places. Since teachers organize content to fit into their daily schedule, which is typically not long, they divide content into small segments and then present each segment in a different session. However, in order to assist students to understand place, it is necessary for students to see the big picture and define the relationships among the segments. This is important since students build their understanding of places by connecting them, instead of separating them into pieces.

A fourth implication is that providing an easy-to-use GIS mod-ule gives students more time to work on tasks, instead of spending time learning about the technology. However, in actuality, develop-ing easy-to-use GIS materials could be a challenge for educators for several reasons. First, although ESRI has been promoting and assist-ing with educational application of GIS, the existing infrastructure of data capturing and sharing does not necessarily include educational implementation because GIS technology was mainly developed and used by businesses and government agencies. In addition, since busi-nesses and government primarily use up-to-date data, the database of historical data is rather small. In contrast, social studies curriculum in K-12 education is usually structured in a chronological order with history as the most emphasized area in social studies. Therefore, in order to integrate GIS into existing school curriculum, historical GIS data are necessary. Locating or building historical GIS databases by individual users, however, could be a challenge because it requires skill and resources.

While using actual data is beneficial, it can also pose a challenge for educators. Using real life data has been suggested to provide more meaningful experience for students; however, the data need to be updated regularly and need continuous maintenance. For example, as local road structure changes and people move, the dada needs to be updated. Again, this requires skill and resources. Considering that teaching social studies is not currently the priority of elementary classroom instruction (VanFossen, 2005), this could create a burden for social studies teachers.

At the individual teacher level, developing an easy-to-use mod-ule could be a challenge. ESRI has been supportive of teachers and facilitated building a community for teachers who use GIS technology (Alibrandi, 2003); however, the number of teachers who use GIS has not grown as rapidly as expected. One of the reasons is that developing GIS materials at the individual level places a great deal of burden on

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teachers. While teachers are already feeling pressured by standardized tests and other demands from the school, developing GIS materials individually could be considered a secondary task.

Nonetheless, easy-to-use GIS materials are necessary to promote the implementation of GIS technology in elementary classrooms. Con-sidering the challenges presented above, the social studies and geogra-phy education communities need to put forward an effort to build the database that is appropriate for educational use, including historical GIS data, to support GIS integration. In addition, social studies and geography organizations need to be more proactive in developing school curriculum based GIS materials in order to relieve teachers of the burden of doing it alone.

In conclusion, educators still know little about how students build their understanding of geography (or any other discipline) when tech-nology is used. This research attempted to explain this in a limited way; however, more research is needed to investigate how students learn and build their geographical understanding. While learning more about how to teach geography is important, understanding how students build their understanding could be even more important because it could help us learn how to teach using the technology available to us.

Author Notes1. The literature from Lambert (2002), White and Rumsey (1993), Hartshorne (1990) and Whiteford (1980) does not directly explain the term of “geographic understanding,” even though they were using the term in their text. Therefore, this author interpreted their use of them based on the context of the texts2. All the names including the school, the teacher, and the students are pseudonyms to maintain confidentiality.

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EUI-KYUNG SHIN is Assistant Professor of Social Studies in the De-partment of Teaching and Learning at the Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115.