There is a strong need to implement spatial thinking using GIScience tools in education, for the following reasons: 1) Spatial thinking is integral to everyday life and many of the daily decisions we make. It is the concept of space that makes spatial thinking a distinct form of thinking. It is a basic and essential skill that can and should be learned, alongside other skills like language, mathematics and science. 2) The knowledge and capability to use GIScience and Geographical Information (GI) is not only essential as a basic skill, it also offers significant job opportunities. However at the moment there is a clear mismatch between workforce demand and supply. The GI sector is in many countries a shortage occupation sector. 3) One of the priorities of the European Union the last decade has been the promotion of “digital literacy.” The GIScience tools used are a perfect answer to this. Although some materials are already available for schools, teachers do not tend to use them in their class practice. The main blocking factor is that the notion of GIScience, GI or spatial thinking is uncommon in the curriculum of almost all European countries. If we want to overcome the chasm which at the moment prevents introducing GIScience in schools, we must introduce and institutionalize it inside the curricula of the schools. This must be done taken into account the level of difficulty connected to the age group. The main focus of the project will therefore be the development of a real learning line on GIScience in education for use in schools, enabling them to translate their curriculum into classroom GI-learning. We need to translate the competencies - taking into account age and level - into real learning objectives in a number of different subjects. The consortium consists of seven European partners covering Belgium, the UK, Spain, Austria, Poland and Romania. The partnership consists of various types of organizations and institutions operating in the field of education, each bringing their considerable expertise to the consortium: two universities, four secondary schools and a pan-European professional association. We divide our approach into different stages: 1) first we summarize the most important literature on learning lines and spatial thinking 2) we scan the curricula to identify opportunities to introduce GIScience. 3) We develop a test to analyse the impact of the learning lines on spatial thinking. 3) We create drafts of learning line translating them into real learning objectives for selected years (K7 and K10) 4) Pupils of different age K7 and K10 of the schools will test the materials and give their feedback and if appropriate their amendements. They will also communicate with their age group of the other schools. 5) The teachers and researchers rewrite the learning outcomes into a final version 6) In the second and third year of the project the same work will be done for year groups K8-K11 and K9-K12. Thus the same group of pupils will be testing the materials for three years in a row. 7) Finally the final learning lines will be published . 8) The learning lines will be along with the essential classroom materials, thus facilitating the introduction and implementation 9) A publication with guidelines for suggested inclusion into the national curricula will be produced. The main outputs at the end of the project are: - a state-of-the-art publication on implementing correctly spatial thinking with GIScience tools in education trough methods of a learning line - learning lines on spatial thinking - all needed material (lesson plans, software, data ...) to implement spatial thinking immediately in the classroom. These results will remain freely available to all groups of stakeholders from different education sectors (e.g. teachers, teacher trainers, educators, academics) helping them to implement the learning line on spatial thinking with GIScience tools into their classroom..
The idea of the project rose from following facts: - job opportunities: The EC identified Geo-ICT as part of the digital economy being vital for innovation, growth, jobs and European competitiveness. However, there is a clear mismatch between workforce demand and supply, resulting in this sector being a shortage occupation sector. - Geo-ICT including geospatial thinking is essential in education. It implies visualisation, manipulation, interpretation and explanation of information ... at different geographic scales using GI tools. Its importance has been acknowledged in the “European Reference Framework, Key Competences for Lifelong Learning” document published by the DG EAC. The project was thus designed to create a series of resources which introduce students to geospatial thinking using these GI tools, develop their ability to use them, be critical of them, based on a learning line from age 12 - 18 years. Although some GI-related materials are already available, teachers so far do not tend to use them. The main blocking factor was that the notion of GIScience, GI or spatial thinking is uncommon in the curriculum of almost all European countries. So, we needed to introduce and institutionalize it within the curricula, taking into account the level of difficulty of each task connected to the age group by using the concept of a learning line. A learning line is an educational term used for progression in the construction of knowledge and skills, designed to have an increasing level of complexity, starting from easier, more basic skills and knowledge, and developing into difficult, more challenging knowledge and skills. The GI Learner consortium consisted of seven European partners covering six countries: Belgium, UK, Spain, Austria, Poland and Romania. The partnership consisted of various types of organizations and institutions operating within the field of education, who each brought their own experience and expertise to the consortium: two universities, four secondary schools and a pan-European professional association. The schools were of different types and took students of broadly similar age range. Following the initial start-up meeting, the project was initiated by doing an in-depth analysis of the most important literature on learning lines and spatial thinking. Ten spatial thinking competencies then emerged following lengthy discussions and peer review and amendments and adaptations. For curriculum development purposes, they have been further developed into a learning line, using three levels of complexity (described as A, B and C). To link the competencies to real curriculum content all partners scanned the curricula from their countries to identify opportunities to introduce GIScience in a range of subjects. Next, for each year group different learning materials and exercises were written, trialled, evaluated and edited. These were linked to the curriculum and mapped to the competencies and level of difficulty for each group. To test the developed materials the cooperation of the target group was obtained: the pupils at the partner schools. They selected pupils K7 (12 y) and K10 (15 y) became the ‘guinea pigs’ for 3 years, as they had to ‘test the test’ by accessing the materials and give their feedback and provide their proposed amendments. This led to adjustments and guidelines when developing the newer exercises. To measure the impact of the learning lines on spatial thinking a self-test was developed, it consists of several parts, related to the selected learning competencies and level of complexity. The tests were completed at the start of the project (providing a zero-value) and at the end of each year to assess progress. Finally, a publication with amendments for inclusion into the national curricula was produced and disseminated among the different national Ministries of Education. This was intended to provide a rationale for the inclusion of GISciences within curriculum change, and perhaps also by qualification awarding bodies. Materials and resources will continue to remain freely available online (shared under a Creative Commons license). Translations have been completed in all the languages of the project partners involved, additionally also a French translation was completed to widen access . GILearner materials are already starting to be used in teacher training programmes in the countries involved in the project. Within the timeframe of reporting on the GI Learner project it has not been possible to evaluate the long-term impact on dissemination to Ministries of Education. However, the development and use of GI learning tools has been encouraged by the involvement of a GIS company ESRI in the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, whereby they provide free access to their Cloud-based platform to many thousands of secondary schools across Europe.