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 • 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 teachers as ‘curriculum-makers’ • Political shift towards ‘core subject knowledge’ (2010-)

Geographical context ‘Spatial patterns, distributions and networks can be described, analysed and often explained by reference to social, economic, environmental and political processes. As part of their geographical enquiries, pupils should identify these processes and assess their impact.’ (UK Geography National Curriculum 2008)

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, 2011

Spatial Thinking • Can be interpreted in a number of different ways • Is a crucial concept in geography • Different perspectives on spatiality significantly influence geography teaching and learning

SPACE IN SPATIAL SCIENCE ‘ 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 Angeles on Friday.’ (Openshaw, 1991)

Subsequent criticisms…. Positivist origins – Designed (only?) to locate, identify, predict, problem-solve? Questionable ethics behind the technology- Commercially- orientated, dubious military applications, non-participatory? ‘Ground Truth : The Social Implications of GIS’ (Edited by John Pickles, 1995) Limitations to thinking geographically?

SPACE IN THE POSTMODERN ‘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 context for the processes and practices that give shape to form and culture.’ (Jackson, 1989)

POST-STRUCTURAL SPACE ‘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 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 thatplace, in whatever guise, is,like space and time,a social construct. The only interesting questionthat can be asked is, by what social process(es)is place constructed?(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 KNOWLEDGEIS BROADLY FACTUAL...... http://www.earth3d.org/oldsite/screenshot_ nasa_bmng.jpg

http://www.londonuk.org.uk/communities/9/004/006/962/779/images/4525607521.gifPROCEDURAL GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGEENCOMPASSES ROUTES AND THE PRACTICE OF‘WAY-FINDING’

CONFIGURATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGEThe bringing together ofdifferent types ofgeographical knowledgeto enable opportunitiesfor deeper learning andunderstanding http://www.wlinfo.org.uk/images /geography2.jpg

Geovisualisation – the ‘fourth r?’(Goodchild, 2008 )Using digital geospatial tools – conventionalGIS and ‘neogeography’ to developgeographical understanding

A Geospatial Project :Aim • To explore the role of GIS in constructing knowledge about place Objectives: To critically examine how place can be represented through GIS To explore how teachers and students mediate GIS in studying place To critically examine outcomes in terms of relational ‘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 Speaking’ • Data collected in 2 schools on representing, constructing and conceptualising place

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

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 relationship between professional and amateur varies across disciplines. The subject matter of geography is familiar to everyone, and the acquisition and compilation of geographic data have become vastly easier as technology has advanced. (Goodchild, 2009) http://vimeo.com/9182869

Neogeography in the ClassroomTEACHERS ANDSTUDENTS USE GEO- STUDENTS CAN CREATE THEIR OWNREFERENCED DATA DATAUPLOADED ONTO THENET 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 withsubsequent 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 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 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 place 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 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 (finger outlining boundary) is here. But, to escape from an imagination of space as a surface is to abandon also that view of place. If space is rather simultaneity of stories-so- far, then places are collections of those stories, articulations of the wider power-geometries of space. Their character will be a product of these intersections within that wider setting, and of what is made of them. And too, of the non-meetings- up, the disconnections and the relations not established, the exclusions. All this contributes 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 Earth • The role of geography subject specialist knowledge in using GIS to enhance teaching and learning of ‘relational place’

Discussion

Thank You

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Geography with a Diferent View Through GIS

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