Investigating Urban Trees

Publication

Mobile geospatial technologies enable high school students to engage in authentic scientific data collection and analysis that promote spatial-thinking and reasoning skills, as well as problem-solving in a school’s local environment. We developed and implemented an Ecological Services investigation aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards in an urban high school with a large population of economically disadvantaged students. The investigation includes local field data collection with mobile devices and classroom data analysis using a freely available Web Geographic Information System

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“You know you can do this, right?”: Developing geospatial technological pedagogical content knowledge (GS-TPACK) and enhancing teachers’ cartographic behaviors with Socio-Environmental Science Investigations (SESI).

Publication

Many barriers exist to K–12 classroom teachers’ adoption and implementation of geospatial technologies with their students. To address this circumstance, we have developed and implemented a geospatial curriculum approach to promote teachers’ professional growth with curriculum-linked professional development (PD) to support the adoption of socio-environmental science investigations (SESI) in an urban school environment that includes reluctant learners. SESI focus on social issues related to environmental science. The pedagogy is inquiry-driven, with students engaged in map-based mobile data

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The Efficacy of Educative Curriculum Materials to Support Geospatial Science Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Publication

Teaching and learning about geospatial aspects of energy resource issues requires that science teachers apply effective science pedagogical approaches to implement geospatial technologies into classroom instruction. To address this need, we designed educative curriculum materials as an integral part of a comprehensive middle school energy resources science curriculum. We examined teachers’ perceived impact of the curriculum materials to support their pedagogical content knowledge related to teaching science with geospatial technologies. Results indicated that the educative curriculum materials

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