AbstractMapping Development Patterns in an Introduction to Economics Course Track: Teaching with GIS in Higher Education Author(s): Rafat Fazeli, Carol Franklin, Timothy Leach This project used GIS in the Intro to Economics classes. The course was designed to integrate GIS weekly labs parallel to class teaching. Students used the United Nation data sets (looking at Human Development Index), US Bureau of Statistics, World Development Indicators from the World Development Report, and GIS in their weekly assignments and term research project. The advantage of using GIS data set is that it provided them with an interactive spatial database. GIS made it possible for the students to visualize the country's database values on fertility rate, population, per capital GDP, life expectancy by analyzing various layers of data on the country under study. It let students increase their knowledge about the comparison of different countries economic position in the global level. Using Mapping Our World lessons, students were able to develop their own projects with data available online. Rafat Fazeli University of Redlands Economics 1200 E. Colton Ave Redlands , CA 92373 US Phone: 909-748-8564 E-mail: rafat_fazeli@redlands.edu Carol Franklin University of Redlands School of Education 1200 E. Colton Ave Redlands , CA 92373 US Phone: 909-748-8794 E-mail: carol_franklin@redlands.edu Timothy Leach University of Redlands MS in GIS 1200 E. Colton Ave Redlands , CA 92373 US Phone: 909-793-2121 E-mail: timothy_leach@redlands.edu |