Abstract
Teaching and Learning with GIS-based Projects in Secondary Schools
Track: Teacher Education and Educational Research
Authors: Ali Demirci, Ahmet Karaburun
About 200 students from three public high schools in Istanbul, Turkey first conducted a survey on 4015 people in their school districts to understand the main social, environmental, and economic problems in their area and then designed nine different GIS-based projects to contribute to their solutions. The students engaged in various activities ranging from the developing of a literature review and visiting public institutions to collecting data in the field by using different equipments and to transferring, creating, modifying, querying, and analyzing data in GIS environment. Evaluation of the survey results conducted on students and observation of the whole processes of the study revealed that implementation of GIS-based projects in secondary schools has many important contributions to students, teachers, and schools. This presentation describes the nine GIS-based projects conducted in three pilot high schools in Istanbul and discusses their effects on students, teachers, and schools.