Testing Prototype K-12 GIS Software: The Case of GEODESY Testing Prototype K-12 GIS Software: The Case of GEODESYBerkeley Geo-Research Group (BGRG), in association with NASA, developed a GIS and remote sensing application for K-12 based on the ArcView product. Three schools were chosen across the US to participate in the testing of the application. Each school represented a different grade (elementary, middle and high school), administrative structure (public vs. private), and subject area. This paper focuses on the successes of this process, as well as the perils and pitfalls associated with working with GIS in K-12 schools.
GEODESY contains three core tracks, each introducing the student to an essential component of geographic information systems use and analysis:
TOOLS introduces students to the use of geospatial tools aerial photographs, satellite imagery and GIS data to study their local areas.
ELEMENTS uses the geospatial tools to study the eight basic geographic elements of the earth: atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, human movement and settlement, cultural mosaic, economic activities and political divisions.
RELATIONSHIPS allows students to combine geographic features to study spatial relationships between them. The three basic relationships that exist are: physical feature to physical feature; human feature to human feature; and, physical feature to human feature. By viewing geographic features within the context of these spatial relationships, students can learn and understand their relationship (direct vs. inverse), as well as the unique forces that determine their coexistence.
GEODESY’s support documentation is provided in the form of an digital KnowledgeBase resource guide which provides hypertexted graphical and textual information about the tools, elements and relationships under study, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to use the software interface itself. This KnowledgeBase guide is also provided to users in hard-copy form.
Each school was given a copy of ArcView and GEODESY, and a complete local dataset of their area. This dataset included aerial photography, Landsat satellite imagery, and extensive vector GIS coverages of each of the eight geographic elements. BGRG made the decision to provide the same level of software and data to each grade level, with the only difference being that the background KnowledgeBase documentation was written at three grade levels to accommodate the elementary, middle and high schoolers. At this early stage, it was unknown what level of complexity and technological sophistication could be handled by each grade level. It was expected that each grade level would use the application in the way best suited to its ability and developmental level.
Each of the schools performed the evaluation within a different context and computer environment. SHES used one Pentium PC with 24 MB RAM and a 486 with 32MB RAM, both donated to the project by BGRG. These computers were available to 27 students who worked in groups of two on an informal basis. The 4th grade teacher integrated GEODESY into the lesson plans by sending students to explore, for example, atmospheric elements in their area when they were studying weather systems; lithospheric elements when they were studying landforms, etc.
OLL evaluated GEODESY in a new computer laboratory with 30 plus 486 PC’s. However, only five machines had sufficient RAM to run the software. Evaluation of GEODESY was limited to the Advanced Technology Club made up of 6th, 7th and 8th graders who met after school hours. The club’s program was not integrated directly into the school curriculum. Personnel from NASA’s Stennis Space Center provided support to OLL as needed.
AJHS used one Pentium PC with 24 MB RAM and a 486 with 32MB RAM, both secured by the school with additional RAM supplied by NASA and BGRG. The machines were installed in the geography classroom with 10th, 11th and 12th graders performing the evaluation. While GEODESY was evaluated during regular school hours, the geography curriculum for high school focuses on world regions rather than local areas. Hence, the redirection of studies to the local level was outside of the mainstream geography curriculum. Personnel from NASA’s Stennis Space Center provided support to AJHS as needed.
The first evaluation round began in April 1996, after eight months of product development. The interim GEODESY product was introduced to the three schools with fanfare and excitement, but also with a little apprehension on the part of the teachers. None of the teachers chosen had ever worked with digital geospatial information before, though they were all comfortable with PC’s and the use of technology in education. All of the teachers asked for some form of formal lesson plan documentation to guide their initial use of GEODESY. I prepared three lesson plans to introduce them to each of the tracks of the program (Tools, Elements, Relationships). Each group of students was asked to informally browse through the program during the last two months of the school year, and to prepare themselves to formally evaluate the program throughout the next school year.
In September 1996, I distributed a evaluation workbook to facilitate the formal testing of GEODESY. It was expected that both students and teachers would participate in the evaluation, and the workbook directed particular questions to either students, teachers or both. The workbook contained detailed checklists and open-ended comment blocks for each screen, process, widget and data coverage in the GEODESY program. It was expected that this evaluation workbook would have a two-fold purpose: firstly, to communicate to BGRG what programming components were not working as expected, and what conceptual tasks were not effective; and secondly, to walk the students through each and every screen, button, menu option, etc. so that they would train themselves while they worked through the evaluation.
The evaluation workbooks were collected in December. Comments and results were integrated into the next beta version of GEODESYthat was prepared and distributed to the testing schools in April 1997.
The formal evaluation period was between September and December 1996. The expectation that each group of students and teachers would work through each page of the workbook, and simultaneously work through each screen, button, menu, etc. of the program, was not fully met. The workbooks were partially completed, though most of the comments and evaluations made were of value. Either the students and teachers did not have enough time to go through the workbook and program in such detail, or the task was too tedious or advanced to complete. In addition, all of the teachers expressed their regret throughout the evaluation process that they could not commit enough of their own time to fully evaluate the program, or explore it enough to learn it. This has been determined to be the primary obstacle in the evaluation and usage of GEODESY in the testing schools.
BGRG did, however, receive some constructive comments and recommendations from students and teachers who did explore and evaluate GEODESY. These comments were either recorded in the workbook, or written in letters. Some of these comments focused on the following areas:
Buttons that did not do what was expected (though in some cases what the students expected the button to do was not what the button was supposed to do.);
Image resolution issues that were beyond the control of the program ("You should make it so that the picture doesn’t get so blurry when you zoom in.");
Better ways to show certain data (color and pattern contrast);
Readability of text labels and legends;
Suggestions on how to better navigate around the program;
Comments that the program wasn’t "entertaining enough";
Belief that "high school students do not have a use for this program";
More on-screen instructions
The addition of cartoon characters throughout the program.
Most of these comments and suggestions were considered, and some of them were integrated into the April 1997 release of GEODESY Beta 2.0.
In retrospect, of even greater value than the workbooks was the face to face contact and hands-on time I spent with the students and teachers who where working with GEODESY. Unfortunately, geographic distance meant that I only had limited exposure to the students and teachers in the Louisiana schools, and their evaluation experience was compromised because of this. They had support from NASA personnel to get them through the technical glitches, but curricular guidance and conceptual support from BGRG could only be given long distance or during my semi-annual visits to the school sites. These workshops were exciting and gratifying, and helped to keep the groups on track, but they were too few and far between. NASA has recently prepared a detailed learning tutorial for upper grade students to provide them with step-by-step procedures for working through GEODESY. The AJHS students are already using this tutorial, and OLL students are preparing to do so.
My greatest impressions of the evaluation process stem from my monthly meetings with the 4th graders at SHES. These meeting proved to be most effective in keeping the students interested and on track with the project. These elementary students were able to effectively interpret the air photo of their community to locate geographic features around their school, and to comprehend the use of points, lines and polygons to represent them. They were not, however, able to effectively interpret or classify the satellite image without guidance. I conclude from my discussions with them that this is a function of lower resolution, and difficulty identifying geographic features beyond their local area in a wider regional area.
They were able to easily interpret the vector GIS information pertaining to the eight elements of the earth (atmosphere, lithosphere, etc.). Once they were familiar with the elements themselves, they were able to read the data and make comments and generalizations about how these elements were spatially distributed on the landscape. Examples of this include identification and location of roads, water bodies, landmarks, boundaries and landforms. Most of this learning process involved direct interaction with me to prompt the students with questions as we looked at a particular map on the computer screen. The confidence and gratification the students felt was apparent as they grasped this material and began to see their world more clearly.
Combining geographic elements to understand their geospatial relationships was a more difficult task. Students were asked to build maps that showed a physical/physical, human/human and physical/human relationship. With close guidance and coaching, they were able to first grasp the concept of "geospatial relationship" as being whether or not certain geographic elements were located in the same place or not. Further discussion helped them discover what kind of relationship existed, either direct or inverse. Examples used included the relationship between elevation and population density (inverse), parks and rivers (direct), schools and population over 65 (inverse), and grazing land and fault lines (inverse). The students were enlightened with their knowledge and were clearly able to make generalizations about the geography of their local community based on the visualizations they built showing these relationships by using these GIS and remote sensing tools.
I remain very impressed with these students’ ability to grasp geospatial concepts, given the right framework and environment for thinking geographically. They are on the forefront of embracing this perspective of looking and studying the world. Unfortunately, the teacher at SHES is leaving the school after this year and these students will not be able to continue this project into 5th grade. Students and teachers at OLL and AJHS will continue using GEODESY during the coming school year by working through the tutorial prepared by NASA, and by developing projects to study their own locally-collected data.
BGRG has also introduced GEODESY to two other schools during this third year of development and testing:
Garfield Year Round School in Oakland, California (4th and 5th graders). The City of Oakland has an extensive GIS system built and administered for its emergency management plan. The objective of the work with the Oakland schools is to integrate local area GIS analysis into the academic curriculum to foster student involvement in urban planning and inner city revitalization efforts.
Booneville Middle School, Booneville, Mississippi. Booneville is opening a $6 million Earth System Science Complex in 1998. They will be using GEODESYto learn about the digital geography of their area by integrating GIS into the middle school curriculum, as well as the interpretive and scientific program of the Earth System Science Complex.
The future of GEODESY, as with most geospatial technology, depends on the Internet. One of the primary obstacles to implementing K-12 GIS and remote sensing is the heavy investment in hardware and software. This investment is usually beyond the reach of most educational institutions. By elevating GEODESY up to an Internet environment, more schools will be able to access it from lower end machines. BGRG is in the process of re-programming GEODESY into a system capable of dynamic web-based interactive geographic inquiry and analysis.