Hello, my name is Emily McCallen. I am a PhD student here at Purdue University in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Today, I'll be talking about a project I'll be working on to introduce geospatial technologies to Indiana high school students.
Before I get started, I wanted to explain what geospatial technologies are and why I have a personal interest in geospatial technologies.
So geospatial technologies are technologies for gathering, storing, processing and delivering spatially referenced information.
One of the most common we think of are GPS units which are use to gather and store coordiante information about where you are now.
Another common technology is geographic information systems softeware which is used to process and analyze data collected on GPS
units.
I have a personal interest in geospatial technology. I have an ecology background but minored in GIS as an undergraduate at Eastern
Illinois University. I used GIS to study land use patterns and the abundance of Japanese beetles in soybean fields.
and I also did my master's research at Eastern Illinois where I used geospatial technologies to develop species distribution models of rivers
otters on the Savanah River site.
Now I'm at Purdue working on my doctorate and I will be using geospatial technologies to develop ecological niche models of eastern hellbenders.
I use geospatial technologies on a daily basis. Geospatial technologies are very important in the field of science and ecology in particular.
It's allowed us to look at ecological issues on a landscape level scale. We weren't able to do this before these technologies were available.
They are also very important economically. In 2012, the U.S. geospatial industry generated $73 billion. Historically, that has grown 25-30%.
Despite this, many students are not introduced to geospatial technology during K-12, even though they can be used to establish
proficient and advanced geography skills. These skills are lacking in America's high school students.
So, despite its standing as a core academic subject, only 20% of 12th graders tested at the proficient level and only 1% tested at the
advanced level.
This has been recognized nationally by legislators. There is currently a bill in congressional committee called Teaching
Geography is Fundamental Act which is set out to address these concerns with the lack of geography skills in secondary students.
One way I want to bridge this gap is with this project. The objective is to introduce geospatial technologies into high schools in Indiana.
We will do that through curriculum development and through the development of a workshop for high school teachers.
So with the curriculum development, we will develop a lesson plan for high school teachers.
and in it, students will design students utilizing geospatial technologies to explore ecological issues.
We will pilot test and tweak as necessary and eventually move into the workshop stage of development.
So for inputs, we are going to need partners. We will need Indiana high school science teachers intersted in using this program, and
Indiana high school students who will help us develop this curriculum. I'm lucky in that regard becuase I'm married to a high school teacher.
We will work together with his classroom to develop this curriculum.
We will also need Purdue graduate students and faculty who will help us develop the curriculum as well as run the workshops.
Obviously this is a very technologically heavy field, so we will need the technology, the GPS units, the GIS software, computers to run them
on, as well as technological expertise to keep everything running smoothly.
We are also going to need a venue for the workshop, and the time to develop the curriculum and workshop activities.
So for outputs, we will have two week lesson plans available online.
We want to develop these as four independent lessons so teachers can pick and choose which ones they are doing.
They can decide if they want to devote the entire two weeks or do them as an independent lesson.
They will meet three core standards for World Geography or Biology 1 for Indiana. That way teachers can flawlessly work this into their
curriculum and not having to worry about meeting the core standards while teaching this.
Then we want to develop the annual workshop for high school teachers so they can build comfort and confidence with these technologies
before they implement the teaching of them in their classroom. Since that will be input heavy, we will cap that at 10 participants.
I think the workshop stage is a really important part of this program. They have done surveys with teachers about implementing geospatial
technolgies in their classroom. They found 63% who participated in professional development go on to implement it in their classrooms.
And 86% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that this training is necessary. It is really important so they know what they are doing in
their classroom.
We are going to directly teach the curriculum material in the workshop, walk teachers through the curriculum because that is how teachers
are using this professional development. A full 62% who taught this in their classroom just used training materials from the professional
development.
So we will just teach the curriculum and when they get comfortable with that, they can seamlessly bring it into the classroom.
What we hope to get out of this, are outcomes on mullitple levels. For knowledge, teachers and students will learn what geospatial data is,
how it is gathered, how it can be used, and also why it is important and why it is valuable.
Actions, we are hoping students and teachers become interested enough in geospatial technologies that they start to use them
outside the classroom that they want to particpate in an activity like geocaching. As students go on to college level, they seek out
classes that teach about geospatial technologies and figure out how they can work them into their professional development.
And finally, overall the big goal is to improve geography skills in high school students.
There's a few ways to tell whether or not we are doing this.
For the knowledge and action goals, we can look at pre- and post-activity assessments. WIth both the teachers and the students when they
participate in the curriculum in the workshop, we can ask them if their knowledge about geospatial technologies has changed,
and whether or not they are more likely to participate in those activities.
For the conditions, we look at the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Geography and compare schools that
participated in the curriculum versus schools that did not, and whether or not there is a significant change in the test outcomes.
For external factors, one of the biggest you may think about is funding. These technologies cost money.
That can be a hurdle in public schools. But, a national survey looking at the implementation of geospatial technologies in the classroom
found that funding was cited much less frequently than other concerns so even though we think that this might be a hurdle teachers are
more worried about other things and their main concern is taking the time to develop these lessons
so by having the curriculum available, we are already addressing teachers' main concerns.
Also time in the classroom, time is a valuable thing but we're hoping that by dividing the curriculum into independent lessons
that teachers can pick and choose which lessons they want to use. If they don't want to devote the full two weeks in their classroom,
they can spend a shorter amount of time but still be involving these technologies within their classroom.
And finally necessity, so as we said part of the hurdle is getting people to understand that these techonologies are important,
but we hope they will start locally, and as teachers start to implement these curriculum in the classroom, if they enjoy them word will
word will spread, and more and more teachers will want to use them.