Incorporating Student Working Experience into GIS Education

Author: Xudong Jia
Organization: California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Department of Civil Engineering
Pomona, CA 91748
USA

Phone: 909-869-4312
Fax: 909-869-4342
xjia@csupomona.edu

Many civil engineering students at Cal Poly, Pomona, work as interns for getting practical experience on planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of facilities. They are often challenged at their workplaces to manage data associated with various location-oriented facilities. This paper addresses an application-oriented teaching approach to incorporate students' working experience into GIS education. The approach involves (1) identifying spatial issues and problems in students' working places, (2) introducing students to the fundamentals of GIS technology and the GIS application development process, and (3) training students to develop and implement GIS projects using data from their working places. A number of student projects will be demonstrated to show that the approach is effective in GIS education.