Abstract
Teaching and Learning About Energy Resources with Web GIS
Track: Teaching with GIS Across the Curriculum
Authors: Alec Bodzin, Violet Kulo, Chris Dempsey, Lori Cirruci, David Anastasio, Dork Sahagian
Effective teaching and learning of energy resource issues involving spatially referenced data with GIS requires teacher pedagogical content knowledge. Toward that end, we have developed a 40-day energy curriculum (http://www.ei.lehigh.edu/eli/energy) for middle school students that include seven Web GIS investigations. To address the need to support science teachers' development of pedagogical content knowledge necessary to promote geospatial thinking and reasoning skills, the curriculum includes materials to promote effective teaching with Web GIS. We present our instructional design model for teaching science with Web GIS, our pedagogical support materials, and illustrate how our Web GIS investigations promote spatial thinking and reasoning skills with diverse middle school students. Results from an implementation study in an urban school district showed enhanced student learning of important energy concepts and growth in geospatial thinking and reasoning skills as a result of the Web GIS curriculum enactment.
Paper