Geospatial Brain Power
Does learning GIS improve spatial reasoning capabilities in high schoolers? A team from six universities is studying the students—and their brains—to find out. A group of researchers from six American universities are studying what effect spatial education has on the development of the spatial thinking and reasoning skills of high school students. The research team…
AAG Organizes Committee to Develop AP® GIS&T Course Proposal
Members of the AP® GIS&T Writing Committee meet at the AAG’s Meridian Place Office in Washington, Pictured clockwise from left: Dorothy Cassetta, Alex Northrup, Jolene Keen, Ola Ahlqvist, Michael Solem, Jacquie Housel, Adriana Martinez, Niem Tu Huynh, and Rich Schultz (via Go2Meeting). Not pictured: Candice Luebbering. The AAG recently hosted a meeting at its Washington,…
Geography and STEM
I knew that I had put my finger on something important when I sent out a message on a listserv and received multiple responses almost immediately and continuously for the next few days. As I’m sure most of us have experienced, our inboxes can fill up overnight with seemingly unimportant messages that are left unread.…
Esri Donates $1 Billion in GIS Software to US K-12 Schools
Responding to President Barack Obama’s call to help strengthen STEM education through the ConnectED Initiative, Esri president Jack Dangermond announced today that Esri will provide a grant to make its advanced mapping software running on cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) available for free to the more than 100,000 elementary, middle, and high schools in the…
The geography of non-academic STEM careers for PhDs
"If you aspire to a career in academe, you may not have much of an opportunity to select where you’ll live," observes Gina Stewart. "The same can be true of alternate careers." Her article in The Chronicle of Higher Education's "On Hiring" section explores a series of interactive maps that reveal the spatial patterns of career…