AbstractSupporting GIS at Small Liberal Arts Colleges Track: Teaching with GIS in Higher Education Author(s): Jon Caris Small liberal arts colleges in the United States are compelled to integrate GIS into their curriculum. However, most of these small colleges lack the more traditional university-level resources used to develop and maintain successful GIS programs. Furthermore, geography departments, the traditional home for GIS, and even courses in GIS are few and far between at small liberal arts colleges. How can faculty and students overcome limited resources and tackle huge learning curves to begin leveraging the capabilities of GIS? This paper will share strategies and techniques used at Smith College that help our faculty teach with GIS and help our students to use GIS in their research. The implementation of these techniques is allowing GIS to flourish and evolve from a model that delivers teaching with GIS to include actually teaching GIS (the first GIS course at Smith was offered in the spring of 2006). Jon Caris Smith College Environmental Science and Policy Clark Science Center, 44 College Lane Northampton, MA 01063 US Phone: 413-585-3042 E-mail: jcaris@smith.edu |