President's Column

Toward More Just Geographies

Photo of large old tree with many healthy roots by Brandon Green for Unsplash
Credit: Brandon Green for Unsplash

Photo of Marilyn Raphael by Ashley Kruythoff, UCLA

The end of the calendar year can be a time to take stock, to renew one’s vision for the future and to make plans. For me, making plans implies hope, hope for a better, happier year. My plan for this year revolves around Just Geographies.

In the coming new year, I look forward to welcoming our members to our hybrid meeting in Denver this March, the first AAG event in three years to have a strong in-person component. Already, nearly 5,000 participants have registered: more than 1,000 sessions with about 4,500 presentations in all.

So far, at least half of all sessions at AAG 2023 will address the meeting theme, “Toward More Just Geographies.” My presidential plenary will kick off the discussion early in the meeting, and I am working with AAG to create a participatory approach to exploring what it can mean to create a “Just Geography.”

In preparing for the Plenary, I talked about this with some AAG members. We realized that a Just Geography is not simply a condition or place, but rather a goal towards which we should work. It is also not spatially or temporally fixed, nor is it something that we can achieve and then move on. Rather, a Just Geography sits on the near horizon, something we envision and can work to get close to, together.

Because each of us has different ideas about what justness means to us, a Just Geography cannot have a single definition. We need to put our ideas together to arrive at a more meaningful description of what is necessary to achieve justness.

I invite you to send to the AAG your thoughts about how to define and attain a Just Geography.

To this end, I invite you to send to the AAG your thoughts about how to define and attain a Just Geography. This could take many forms, from a couple of sentences, to a meaningful quote and citation, to a short poem, or a short paragraph. Since we have talented mappers and visualizers among us, we invite visualizations of all kinds. We would like your permission to project these different meanings of a Just Geography in the room where the Presidential Plenary is held in Denver, and to share virtually to meeting participants who join us online. We are also looking into setting up a conversation space for sharing these throughout the meeting, a place that also invites people to stay and talk with one another.

Through this work, we seek to share the many different and changing perspectives that each of you can bring to the question of a Just Geography. We would like to encourage the most diverse and meaningful dialogue around this question and its possibilities that we can.

Over the next few months, please send your thoughts on what a Just Geography means to you to helloworld@aag.org, or share on social media using the hashtag #JustGeographies.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0124

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at raphael [at] geog [dot] ucla [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

    Share
Collective Concerns Spatial Narratives
Marilyn Raphael
Marilyn Raphael
Careers

Program Profile: Salisbury University – GIS

Photo of Michael Scott
Michael Scott

GIS has been taught at Salisbury University since at least the early nineties, says Dr. Michael Scott, a graduate of the Department of Geography and Geosciences and now a professor in the department and dean of the Henson School of Science and Technology. Continuing the success of their GIS program, in 2007, the department expanded into graduate education with their M.S. in GIS Management (MSGISM).   

Photo of Andrea Presotto
Andrea Presotto

“We realized that our students were doing very well in terms of finding employment and working in the field,” said Dr. Andrea Presotto, director of the MSGISM. “But the organizations they worked for were not particularly strategic about managing their GIS implementations.”   

The new M.S. program was conceived as a combination MBA and GIS degree, to better equip students with the skillsets necessary to become not only effective GIS practitioners, but also address this gap in data management and become leaders in public administration, grant writing, enterprise operations management, and a host of other skills beyond the technical level. This outside-the-box thinking and response to employment realities have elevated the program to one of the most respected departments on campus.  

A Regional Approach

On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, agriculture, tourism, fisheries, residential and commercial development all face challenges in response to increasing climate change. The Department of Geography and Geosciences at Salisbury University has positioned itself as a big part of the solution for the communities in the region. In 2004, department faculty formed the Eastern Shore Regional GIS Cooperative (ESRGC), which Dr. Scott directs, to help organize the region’s small towns to pool their resources for much-needed GIS project support.    

“One small town doesn’t have the ability for a GIS staff to do data collection and analysis. If you put seven or eight little towns together, suddenly there are enough resources to hire somebody to actually get that done,” explains Scott.    

[Our students] are able to get this very intensive, on-the-job experience, but the only way that works, of course, is the ESRGC has to know that the quality of the students getting GIS education coming out of the department is great, because they’re going to put them right to work.”

—Michael Scott

An outreach unit of Salisbury University and joint effort between a collection of Maryland Eastern Shore regional councils and the university, the ESRGC has grown to include 10 full-time staff, nine of whom are alumni of the department. In good years, Scott estimates that the cooperative hires anywhere from 25 to 30 interns from the department, where they acquire the invaluable real-world experiences and skills needed to move directly into professional GIS positions, even before they graduate.  

“[Our students] are able to get this very intensive, on-the-job experience,” Salisbury University’s Dr. Michael Scott explains, “but the only way that works, of course, is the ESRGC has to know that the quality of the students getting GIS education coming out of the department is great, because they’re going to put them right to work.”

Photo of students in a Salisbury University GIS class demonstrating mapping on their computers
Photo courtesy Salisbury University

If you build it, they will come…

Students and alumni of the Department of Geography and Geosciences have earned an excellent reputation throughout the region, a credit to the dedication of the department’s faculty, and their student-centered approach. As Dr. Art Lembo, a professor in the department and Technical Director of the ESRGC explains, this starts with the physical building itself:   

“We requested the faculty offices be located in an off-hallway suite that allows our doors to be open all the time, so the students can better interact with the faculty. We made structural changes to accommodate better interaction, because it’s just in our DNA to give the students this kind of experience.”  

It trickles into [our students] bringing their friends, who can become majors as well.”

—Dr. Andrea Presotto

Dr. Dan Harris, a professor and chair of the department, notes that unlike other academic buildings on campus, which typically close at midnight, the Geography and Geosciences faculty years ago made a special request to the president of the university to allow the department lab to remain open 24 hours to provide students with the opportunity to be in the building at any time. This level of attention to detail concerning the physical learning space is representative of the student-first, innovative thinking that has set the program apart.    

“It trickles into [our students] bringing their friends, who can become majors as well,” Dr. Andrea Presotto, Geography and Geosciences professor at Salisbury University.   

Photo of Dan Harris
Dan Harris

“We have faculty who are really good at getting [undergraduate students] in for field courses, and we embed field experiences in their classes. It’s really important to show the students that it’s not just a discipline where we come in and lecture in a classroom, and you walk away and read a textbook. We actually want them to get out and see it,” says Dr. Dan Harris, department chair.

    Share
Geography Essentials Quantitative Data and Analyses Spatial Narratives
Mark Revell
Mark Revell
Resources

Great Plains Rocky Mountains Division 2022 Regional Meeting Program

    Share
Geography Essentials Sharing Knowledge Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Resources

2022 White Paper on Locational Information and the Public Interest

    Share
Collective Concerns Qualitative Data and Analyses Quantitative Data and Analyses Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Resources

Quick Start Guide to Integrate the Ethics of Locational Information into Your College and University Courses and Programs

3D futuristic circuit background showing network

Authors (in alphabetical order) 

Jeremy Crampton (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.), Coline C. Dony (American Association of Geographers), Victoria Fast (University of Calgary), Peter Kedron (Arizona State University), Joseph Kerski (Environmental Systems Research Institute, University of Denver), Julaiti Nilupaer (American Association of Geographers), Clancy Wilmott (University of California, Berkeley) 

Sharing where you are and where you have been, can be as deeply personal and as revealing as sharing your health or financial information. Yet, we enable location tracking on our devices (phone, wearables, cars) either out of convenience or without realizing it, and do so without scrutinizing whether our information will be used for commercial, public, or other purposes, nor whether it will be further shared or sold. This lack of awareness and complacency raises questions around the social and ethical implications of location information and geotechnologies (which we will refer to as “geoethics,” for short), and how people are differently affected by, subject to, or able to use these technologies for positive change. 

Educators at colleges and universities, particularly those teaching at least one subject that involves the use or applications of locational information or geotechnologies, have a vital role to play in developing that awareness around geoethics. At a recent Summit on Locational Information and the Public Interest, participants were brought together by a common concern for the uneven ethical, legal, and social implications of locational information. As a subset of the Summit participants, we (the authors of this article and educators ourselves) largely discussed educational materials and training goals that are deemed newly essential for students. We recognized that teaching geoethics cannot be reduced to a checklist or a code, and that it should not be relegated to a single class period at the end of a course or reserved for an upper-level course at the end of a specialized program.  

We recommend embedding geoethics throughout a course (and at all levels of a program) to help students develop a habit of considering the ongoing, situated, and critical appreciation of the context in which locational information is collected, analyzed, visualized, and acted upon. We recognize, however, that geotechnologies evolve so rapidly, that it can be challenging to decide what to teach and which examples to cover, or to know what ethical responsibilities we each have (whether in daily life or at work) and demonstrate to students how to apply or practice these responsibilities. 

If you are teaching a subject that involves the use or applications of locational information or geotechnologies (at any level), this guide is to empower you to start (or continue) embedding geoethics throughout your course(s). We provide 2 simple examples of what “experiential learning” of geoethics can look like, which does not require extensive background in GIS or programming. Experiential learning (Kolb, 2014) is a teaching strategy where students “learn by doing” and then reflect on the experience. It typically follows a four-stage cycle (1. Concrete Example, 2. Reflective Observation, 3. Abstract Conceptualization, and 4. Active Experimentation), which helps students better understand and remember the concepts taught. We also invite anyone to share additional learning activity ideas or examples you have already embedded in your course (more information on how to share your examples further down). 

Experiential Learning Activity 1 – Location Privacy Checkup

This activity would be fitting for any introductory-level geography or any course dealing with data. The learning outcomes of this activity are for students to do a deeper dive into the “location enabled” settings in their phone, to evaluate their own location sharing practices, and to understand and discuss how and why location is being used. This can be done in a lecture or as a take home/online mini or participation assignment. 

Concrete Experience: Ask your students to count how many apps they have on their phone or tablet, and how many of these apps have access to one or more of the following 3 hardware components on their phone: (1) GPS or location, (2) camera, and/or (3) microphone. Make sure you show how they can find this information on their phone. Let them pick 1 or 2 apps that have access to at least one of the 3 hardware (GPS, camera, and/or microphone), and ask them to read the terms of use and privacy policy for each app. Then, have them share what they found either in a written summary or discussion with classmates. 

Reflective Experience: Engage your class in a larger reflection and class discussion on what they found and their level of comfort with the data they are sharing through their phone (e.g., comfort about the amount, about the type, about how it will or could be used, etc.). Spoiler alert: students are shocked to learn how much information they are sharing. 

Active Experimentation: Ask your students to login to their Google account if they have one, and have them go to Google Maps. Have them check their privacy and location sharing settings. To spark discussion, have them zoom into an area and have them compare with a peer which points of interest (POIs, such as stores, parks, etc.) show up on their basemap. They may be different since they are based on past searches and visits. You can also have them explore the location data that is stored in their Google “Timeline”. 

Abstract Conceptualization: Assign one or more of the following readings to have a more advanced discussion during the next class. To help them prepare for the discussion and begin to conceptualize these implications in a more abstract way, ask them to formulate how they might change their behavior with this new awareness, how they might facilitate conversations with others, or – if you covered any ethical framework(s) in class, have them place their experience within the ethical framework(s). 

Experiential Learning Activity 2 – The Truth behind Satellite Imagery

This activity would be fitting in an upper-level geography, GIS, or related course. The learning outcomes of this activity are to understand that imagery from aircraft, UAVs, or satellites are cast onto the Earth, which comes with loss of accuracy, distortions, and other limitations, and to understand that these images through additional manipulations (extensive at times) that can have important ethical implications. While these images are increasingly viewed critically, and rightly so, they are still too often viewed as “truth” and assumed not to have been subjected to manipulation or edit. This activity helps students develop a practice to view these images, like any geo-information, with a critical eye in terms of their content and intent, their resolution, the manipulations they went through, the band(s) of the electromagnetic spectrum that is(are) being examined, and much more. 

Concrete Examples: In the 3 blog posts linked below, you will find a handful of satellite image comparisons. Use all examples (or select a few) to present to your students: 

Reflective Observation: When you present each example, give your students some time to examine each one so they can start identifying differences. Then, ask them to share with each other what differences they see and why they suspect these differences are there. After their discussions, provide more context about some of the reasons behind those differences or have them read through the blog post(s). Then, depending on which examples you covered, have them reflect on the importance of the imagery or basemap we choose, about how satellite images are represented, and/or about the use of algorithms to manipulate satellite imagery. 

Active Experimentation: If you want to keep experimenting with “imagery offset,” have your students get coordinates of a place they know and have them map those coordinates on different mapping services they use. If you want to keep experimenting with representation of satellite imagery, you can ask your students to take a satellite image (or have them take a screenshot of one) and apply filters to the image. Filters are widely available on many apps now or on free web-based photo editors. Have them test different filters to over- or under-emphasize certain aspects in the image. 

Abstract Conceptualization: Assign one or more of the following readings to have a more advanced discussion during the next class. Engage your class in a larger reflection and discussion about the ethical implications of the manipulation (algorithmic or other) of satellite images. 

Share Your Learning Activity with Us

By design, this ‘quick start guide’ presents what we feel are some of the key ideas yet practical steps to integrating discussions of the ethics of location information into geography education. The field of Geoethics is far richer than what we intended to present here and cannot be captured in a small number of example exercises. You can read a more complete set of our thoughts on and recommendations for education and the ethics of location information in our White Paper on Locational Information and the Public Interest. We also invite anyone to share additional learning activity ideas or examples you have already embedded in your course(s). 

  • Email us any activity or resource you are using in your class(es) at jnilupaer@aag.org, addressing a few questions below: 
    • “Brief introduction of yourself (affiliation, department and program, position/title, etc.)” 
    • “Title of the activity/resource” 
    • “(if any) Link to the activity/resource” 
    • “Which class(es), how to apply the activity/resource in your classroom, and why it’s recommended” 

We are especially interested in examples that help students engage with location privacy, open data, sharing results, the benefits and constraints of geotechnologies, and workflows for representing geospatial data (projections, symbology, classification, generalization), but we welcome any ideas and examples that can work in on or more courses across the geography curriculum (from world geography all the way to that upper level “geoethics” course), and coming from educators teaching any level and in any institution of higher education (from post-docs and visiting lecturers to long-time professors). 

Further Readings

Read more about “experiential learning”: Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Second Edition.  FT press. Available for Download at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315793484_Experiential_Learning_Experience_as_the_source_of_Learning_and_Development_Second_Edition 

There are many more resources and relevant examples to support the integration of geoethics into the curriculum. The list of resources below can help you incorporate additional ways to address the use of locational information and ethics in your course(s). 

  • What Do We Teach When We Teach Tech Ethics? A Syllabi Analysis (SIGCSE 2020): This resource provides a qualitative analysis on 115 syllabi of ethics courses in higher education and recommendations on integrating this content across curriculum.
    Fiesler, C., Garrett, N., & Beard, N. (2020, February). What do we teach when we teach tech ethics? a syllabi analysis. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 289-295). https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366825  
  • Teaching Geoethics (E.U. Erasmus+ Programme): This resource provides an approach to teaching geoethics with the aim of building a socially responsible and ethically committed geoscientific community. From designing the syllabus, to issues of geoscience communication, to the analysis of specific cases within the diverse domains of the geosciences. 
  • Teaching and Learning about Geo-ethics with the Geoprivacy Video Series (AGS’ EthicalGEO): This resource by the American Geographical Society provides an eight-part series of educational videos (each 5 min. or less) that come with an educational resource (PDF) providing suggested activities, articles, and discussions to learn about teaching ethical issues related to location data collection. Topics range from false identification of crime suspects using GPS data to the use of location tracking to vet job applicants. 
  • GISEthics Case Studies (UPenn): This resource by the University of Pennsylvania provides a collection of videos showcasing real-world case studies videos published by Pennsylvania State University, posing a range of ethical challenges faced by geospatial professionals and relevant resources, and supporting you to apply these case studies in your teaching. 
  • Teaching Ethics with GIS (AGS’ Ethical GEO): This blog post by the American Geographical Society provides links to different examples or resources you can use to teach ethics with GIS. 
  • GIS&T Body of Knowledge (UCGIS): The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) outlines important areas of knowledge in GI&T including a few related to ethics. Their entries on these topics cover important definitions, background, and recommendations for professionals, or for teaching and learning. 
  • The Spatial Reserves book and blog: This collection of over 400 essays is focused on three things: (1) how to find geospatial data, (2) how to assess its quality (is it any good? Does it meet my needs?) and (3) societal issues including accuracy and precision, fee vs free (charging for data vs. opening it up to everyone), location privacy, ethics, copyright, and other issues. 
  • The International Association for Promoting GeoEthics: This international, scientific, multidisciplinary association provides a community focused on geoethics and contains a list of tools, publications and events that can already be useful. 
  • The Turing Way Handbook (The Alan Turing Institute): An open-source and community-led handbook for reproducible, ethical, and collaborative data science, supporting a diverse community of contributors to make data science accessible, comprehensible and effective for all. In particular, this handbook includes a section on ethical issues, based on responsible research and innovation, and provides related laws, policies and knowledge for you on how to conduct ethical research. 
  • The Benchmark Initiative (Ordnance Survey, UK): created by Omidyar Network and Ordnance Survey to increase awareness of the many potential risks of using location data, to identify ethical principles, and to promote good practice. Developed the “Locus Charter” to develop international principles of good location practice. 
  • The ABC of ethical use (The U.K. Geospatial Commission): a policy paper on building public confidence in location data, and how to unlock value from location data while mitigating ethical and privacy risks, ensuring compliance with legal principles and retaining the trust of citizens. 

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0114

    Share
Collective Concerns Qualitative Data and Analyses Quantitative Data and Analyses Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Resources

Attracting students of all backgrounds to programs in geography or geocomputation starts before they enter college

By Coline C. Dony, Atsushi Nara, Michael Solem 

Faculty at geography programs in the U.S. regularly reach out to the AAG to ask which strategies they can use to attract more students, and especially how to reach students who have been underrepresented in their program(s). AAG worked on projects and efforts over the years to help us answer these questions, such as the ALIGNED project, the Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) in Geography initiative, and the Diversity Ambassadors program. Some of our past efforts also generated resources (e.g., a few books from the EDGE project) and advanced conversations on these challenges (e.g., during sessions at our Annual Meeting). What these efforts have not been able to do yet is measure our overall progress toward including more perspectives and identities in our geography community and the effectiveness of certain strategies. 

General observations from AAG members (and from AAG staff), however, are that even if some progress toward diversity and inclusion (D&I) is visible, it is not sufficient, and it has been too slow. First, if we want to move past a “general observation,” we need to better measure where we are today, and systematically measure our progress toward attracting the next generation of geographers. The AAG D&I Committee recognizes this too, and has recommended “Enabling Data-Driven D&I Excellence” in the 3-Year Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan released in October of 2021. Second, if progress has been too slow, we may need to recognize that the strategies we have used thus far may not be as effective as we think, or may not have addressed challenges at their root. 

Low enrollment in U.S. geography programs is mainly caused by the lack of awareness among incoming college students that geography is a discipline and a career pathway. This lack of awareness can then contribute to the lack of diversity in our programs. Here is one example how: Because of their lack of geography awareness, college students who do “discover” geography, only do so after a year or two into their studies (if they happen to take a geography course, for example). Even if that course inspires them to pursue geography, by that time, students typically already have their major declared. At that point, it can be a hard financial case to make to change majors or to add a minor or certificate. If good career earnings are not obvious on top of that, or if students do not see themselves represented among professions, the case to switch majors becomes even harder, particularly for those already underrepresented. For that reason, it becomes especially important to raise the awareness of students who are underrepresented before they enter college. 

Schematic showing elements to choosing a degree or career path Figure 1: Choosing a degree or career path is a careful consideration (particularly for underrepresented groups) that starts with being aware of possible paths. Awareness can develop into an aspiration to pursue one or more paths if it is clear the skills and knowledge will help make a difference. The clear prospects (careers and representation), however, weigh heavily in our choices. 

That lack of awareness among college students about our discipline and its career opportunities is rooted in the limited geography instruction in the U.S. school system. The focus of instruction in K-12 is on reading, math, and science, with a more recent push to make space for computer science instruction at all levels. Geography, on the other hand, is not a subject that is required (nor high in priority) in most states. In their consistent Survey of Social Studies and Geography in Middle and High Schools, the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education reported that in 2020-2021 only 4 states required a stand-alone geography course in middle school (down from 16 in 2009-10) and 11 states required a combined geography and social studies course. From the same report, only 3 states required a standalone geography course for high school graduation (down from 6 states in 2009-10) and 10 states required a combined course. The remaining states either do not require geography or offer geography as an elective course. 

When geography is not offered as a stand-alone course, it typically finds a small space in the social studies curriculum. In “Most Eighth Grade Students Are Not Proficient in Geography,” the Government Accounting Office reported in 2015 that over 50% of teachers who spent 3-5 hours per week on social studies instruction spend 10% or less on geography. Given the pressure new subjects add to instruction time (e.g., Computer Science), geography finds itself in a perennial struggle for curriculum space. Keep in mind too, that most teachers instructing social studies or stand-alone geography courses do not have a background or degree in geography. 

If we want diverse youth to come to college campuses with an awareness and aspiration to study geography, then we need to find effective strategies to foster that awareness and aspiration at the K-12 level. Some geography programs already recognize this and have developed connections with local schools (e.g., by inviting their students to their campus, organizing a GIS day, or spending a few days in local schools to help with geography instruction). These efforts are important, but faculty often lack sufficient time to invest in these events on a consistent basis. By the time a student applies for or starts college, the geography event(s) they participated in may no longer sit fresh in their memory. 

If anything, geography teaches us that our local context matters, and it helps us connect to concepts, even if they are complex.

Under our Encoding Geography initiative, the AAG initiated a collaboration in 2018 that now includes 2 universities (San Diego State University [SDSU] and University of California Riverside), a community college (San Diego Mesa College [SDMC]), and a high school district (Sweetwater Union High School District [SUHSD]), all in Southern California. The goal is for students of all backgrounds to find geography more consistently along an inclusive curriculum pathway connecting multiple levels of education. Initiating sustainable collaborations across educational levels and institutions is complex, which is why we follow both the Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) approach and the Collaborative Impact Framework, which recommends “backbone” organizations. The stakeholder organizations supporting this collaboration are the AAG, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE), and the California Geographic Alliance (CGA). 

This summer, this Encoding Geography RPP organized a workshop at SDSU for instructors (high school and college) that are already along students’ pathway towards careers in geography, namely instructors of geography, GIS, and computer science courses in SUHSD and SDMC. Indeed, in the local context of California, geography careers in the tech sector are numerous and require a combination of geography and computer science skills and knowledge (which we refer to as “geocomputation”). One advantage we have in the SUHSD is that geography is a standalone and required course, which means there are geography teachers, and all high schoolers have an opportunity to learn geography. Then, working with computer science teachers to incorporate spatial thinking in their courses creates additional places for students to learn about geography. During the workshop, we engaged in discussions and activities around geography, spatial thinking, computational thinking, and geocomputation. To set the stage for these discussions, Kelly León, a doctoral student in education for social justice at SDSU and geography teacher and cohort leader at SUHSD, coordinated a virtual series of Teacher Professional Learning earlier this Spring. 

Image showing Encoding Geogrpahy Southern California partnership locations and team

Figure 2: Map showing the locations of the educational institutions participating in the Encoding Geography Research Practice Partnership (left) and a picture taken at the workshop organized at San Diego State University (SDSU) in August 2022 (right). 

The workshop also covered ways to build awareness, develop aspiration, and show degree or career prospects, which are the main elements needed for students to choose a degree or career. The Powerful Geography approach to teaching and learning helps combine those elements in the classroom. It takes into account principles of culturally/community-driven teaching to help student aspirations, and it recognizes that students change every cycle while their local context also changes (e.g., local workforce needs, and social challenges) which means instructors are best positioned to adapt lessons that will develop their aspirations. Too often, we see solutions in the form of pre-packaged lessons with the intent to save instructors’ time. Yet, these lessons can completely miss the local context and can disempower instructors and make them lose confidence in the pedagogy experience and expertise they bring. If anything, geography teaches us that our local context matters, and it helps us connect to concepts, even if they are complex. 

The participating instructors in our workshop will help us this academic year to collect baseline data about their students’ awareness and aspirations around geography, computer science, and geocomputation. Next summer, they will participate in a lesson development workshop and implement their lessons in their classrooms. We will collect data again to measure the impact of these lessons on their students’ awareness and aspirations. Because of the National Science Foundation’s interest in research on strategies to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), its CSforAll program is funding our collaboration (NSF Active Award Nos. 2031418, 2031407, and 2031380. Past Award No. 1837577). 

Recognizing that teachers don’t always come with a background or degree in geography or computer science, we are also measuring how their involvement in Encoding Geography impacts their awareness around these concepts. Participating instructors in this project will receive more professional development opportunities from our partners to continue building the strength of this RPP. For example, more virtual professional development series are planned by SDSU and SDMC this Fall. Additionally, the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age at SDSU (directed by Professor of Geography Ming-Hsiang Tsou) has been organizing the “Big Data Hackathon\San Diego” for a few years now. This year geography and computer science teachers were invited to help coordinate activities for the hackathon to give them additional ways to keep engaged on geocomputational challenges. On the long run, strengthening these connections may help attract more high school students to participate in the hackathon, adding an additional space for students to build awareness, develop aspiration, and see prospects to choose a degree or career path in geography or geocomputation. 

At the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in Denver (March 23-27, 2023), we will organize panels to discuss strategies to create inclusive pathways for geography from schools to colleges. If you are at a community college or university and you are in the process of building connections with local schools, or you already built some connections, we invite you to participate in one of our panel discussions. If you are interested, please contact Julaiti Nilupaer, our AAG Research Assistant, at jnilupaer@aag.org, who can provide more details and will coordinate the organization of those panels. 

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0116

    Share
Collective Concerns Sharing Knowledge Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff

Locational Information and the Public Interest

Ethics and AAG