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In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

KidsGIS.org - Open Source GIS Tools For Kids

posted by Satri on Tuesday March 18, @02:50PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the think-of-the-children-meme dept.
Education GIS Open Source Community OSGeo
Very Spatial shares an overview of the KidsGIS.org project. From their mission statement: "Provide an intuitive environmental geospatial portals for kids of all ages, based on open source software, open exchange formats and industry standards data models - and core support centers to assure sustainability and continual growth." In our Education section, you'll find more tools and websites, but few are specifically targeting kids. See also selected related stories below.

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Related Stories

More GIS in the Classrooms [+]
GeoPlace links to small announcement from the US's National Research Council urging educators to teach K-12 students to think spatially, using geographic information systems. From the United Press International article: "Because geographic information systems are designed for use by scientists and are too complex for classroom use, the NRC report urges the use of GIS software specifically designed to meet the needs of elementary and secondary teachers and students."
NASA World Wind Classroom Website [+]
This new NASA World Wind Classroom website has been launched recently. From the website: "My goal with this webpage is to try to harness some of the power of these tools in the educational setting [...]". It already features lab documentation, slide shows, screenshots and powerpoint presentations.
Google Earth in the Classroom [+]
Ogle Earth reports Google released Google Earth lessons for educators and anyone interested in learning how to use Google Earth. Here's lessons plans. From the Google website: "You can use Google Earth demos to get your students excited about geography, and use different Google Earth layers to study economics, demographics, and transportation in specific contexts. For instance: you can use real-time coordinates to demonstrate distance calculations and verify the results using Measurement tools; view tectonic plate-shift evidence by examining whole continents, mountain ranges and areas of volcanic activity; study impact craters, dry lake beds and other major land forms. The only limit to Google Earth's classroom uses is your imagination."
GPS Interactive Car Game [+]
GeoBloggers provides many links discussing the new Backseat Playground game in development, targeted at car passengers with a GPS and a laptop. From the site: "The purpose of the project is to design and implement a game prototype that enables kids/big kids travelling in the back seat of cars to enjoy a rich gaming experience where narrative episodes and embedded gameplay combine with the experience of traveling through the road network. The game and game story will be designed to be meaningful even when the tempo and order of the journey changes." We learn from High Earth Orbit that this project is sponsored by Microsoft and the Ordinance Survey.
GeoJunior for the Geographic Children [+]
The AnyGeo blog links to GeoJunior, a geomagazine and website for children. From their about page: "[...] it is essential that we create a portal of self-learning for the children of the country, linking geography and spatial sense to their upbringing. In other words, earth science in the broader sense should work like a language to their knowledge base. Besides these, there is an intense social opportunity with the elders to transfer knowledge on earth science to children."
Learning GIS and Learned Helplessness [+]
The Memory Link has an interesting entry on learned helplessness in GIS, a reaction to this entry on All Points Blog about learning GIS in the context of fast evolution. From the APB post: "I'm less comfortable with this statement: "People interested in working in geographic information systems must understand that everything learned today will be useless in the future because technology constantly changes [...] I'll suggest that the intended message is that software and technology will surely change, but the core concepts of GIS/geography won't." From TML: "In any discipline I suppose there is a risk that a tool can cultivate a state of “learned helplessness” resulting in users who are unable to imagine solutions to problems for which their tool was not designed. [...] Learned helplessness becomes quite apparent when viewing the attitude many GIS users have towards major software vendors."
Map Literacy and Geography in the Classroom 2 comments [+]
Direction Mags runs an article by Claudine Bianchi of MetaCarta about today's geography in the U.S. classrooms. From the article: "Only 13% of the Americans surveyed correctly identified Iraq on a map of Asia and the Middle East. Only about half of young Americans were able to locate landmasses such as Japan and India on a global map. And 20% of those surveyed could not find the Pacific Ocean. But set aside our less-than-satisfactory performance at a Geography Bee, and jump ahead to the terrain of public and private firms where geography has become one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal. [...] Mistick went on to say, "While war teaches us much about geography, a solid knowledge of geography can provide the key to political success. On every rung of the political ladder there is no substitute for a thorough understanding of the geography of an election district or ward or city as our civic wars are fought."" Meanwhile, The Map Room links to a story about a third of Britain not able to read a map: "Over a third of motorists struggled to read a four-figure grid reference and a staggering 83 per cent failed to identify the “motorway” map symbol. … One in six (16 per cent) UK drivers no longer keep a map in their car [...]" See also related stories below.
More Parents Ready to Track their Kids [+]
All Points Blog links to a short article on parents more and more likely to track their kids. From the article: "Forty-two per cent of the parents surveyed, all with children under the age of 13, said they would be interested and willing to pay for services that would allow them to track the whereabouts of their children. [...] In addition, just over one-quarter (26 per cent) of mobile users aged 18 to 24 said they would be interested in mobile social networking apps based on the location of their friends. But the use of some location-based services already available remains low. Just three per cent of mobile users surveyed said they use mobile navigation tech such as maps or turn-by-turn navigation."
Industry: Free Open Source GIS Courses Online 2 comments [+]
Free Geography Tools reports on Florida State offering online open source GIS courses for free. Included in list are courses for Diva, Mapwindow, Quantum, uDig, and AccuGlobe.
Google Earth for Education [+]
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