Spatial Thinking in Environmental Contexts - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Spatial Thinking in Environmental Contexts write by Sandra Lach Arlinghaus. This book was released on 2019-07-11. Spatial Thinking in Environmental Contexts available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Spatial Thinking in Environmental Contexts: Maps, Archives, and Timelines cultivates the spatial thinking "habit of mind" as a critical geographical view of how the world works, including how environmental systems function, and how we can approach and solve environmental problems using maps, archives, and timelines. The work explains why spatial thinking matters as it helps readers to integrate a variety of methods to describe and analyze spatial/temporal events and phenomena in disparate environmental contexts. It weaves together maps, GIS, timelines, and storytelling as important strategies in examining concepts and procedures in analyzing real-world data and relationships. The work thus adds significant value to qualitative and quantitative research in environmental (and related) sciences. Features Written by internationally renowned experts known for taking complex ideas and finding accessible ways to more broadly understand and communicate them. Includes real-world studies explaining the merging of disparate data in a sensible manner, understandable across several disciplines. Unique approach to spatial thinking involving animated maps, 3D maps, GEOMATs, and story maps to integrate maps, archives, and timelines—first across a single environmental example and then through varied examples. Merges spatial and temporal views on a broad range of environmental issues from traditional environmental topics to more unusual ones involving urban studies, medicine, municipal/governmental application, and citizen-scientist topics. Provides easy to follow step-by-step instructions to complete tasks; no prior experience in data processing is needed.
Learning to Think Spatially
Learning to Think Spatially - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Learning to Think Spatially write by National Research Council. This book was released on 2005-02-03. Learning to Think Spatially available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Learning to Think Spatially examines how spatial thinking might be incorporated into existing standards-based instruction across the school curriculum. Spatial thinking must be recognized as a fundamental part of Kâ€"12 education and as an integrator and a facilitator for problem solving across the curriculum. With advances in computing technologies and the increasing availability of geospatial data, spatial thinking will play a significant role in the information-based economy of the twenty-first century. Using appropriately designed support systems tailored to the Kâ€"12 context, spatial thinking can be taught formally to all students. A geographic information system (GIS) offers one example of a high-technology support system that can enable students and teachers to practice and apply spatial thinking in many areas of the curriculum.
Discipline-Based Education Research
Discipline-Based Education Research - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Discipline-Based Education Research write by National Research Council. This book was released on 2012-08-27. Discipline-Based Education Research available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The National Science Foundation funded a synthesis study on the status, contributions, and future direction of discipline-based education research (DBER) in physics, biological sciences, geosciences, and chemistry. DBER combines knowledge of teaching and learning with deep knowledge of discipline-specific science content. It describes the discipline-specific difficulties learners face and the specialized intellectual and instructional resources that can facilitate student understanding. Discipline-Based Education Research is based on a 30-month study built on two workshops held in 2008 to explore evidence on promising practices in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This book asks questions that are essential to advancing DBER and broadening its impact on undergraduate science teaching and learning. The book provides empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in the sciences, explores the extent to which this research currently influences undergraduate instruction, and identifies the intellectual and material resources required to further develop DBER. Discipline-Based Education Research provides guidance for future DBER research. In addition, the findings and recommendations of this report may invite, if not assist, post-secondary institutions to increase interest and research activity in DBER and improve its quality and usefulness across all natural science disciples, as well as guide instruction and assessment across natural science courses to improve student learning. The book brings greater focus to issues of student attrition in the natural sciences that are related to the quality of instruction. Discipline-Based Education Research will be of interest to educators, policy makers, researchers, scholars, decision makers in universities, government agencies, curriculum developers, research sponsors, and education advocacy groups.
Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems
Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems write by Graeme S. Cumming. This book was released on 2011-02-09. Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Spatial Resilience is a new and exciting area of interdisciplinary research. It focuses on the influence of spatial variation – including such things as spatial location, context, connectivity, and dispersal – on the resilience of complex systems, and on the roles that resilience and self-organization play in generating spatial variation. Prof. Cumming provides a readable introduction and a first comprehensive synthesis covering the core concepts and applications of spatial resilience to the study of social-ecological systems. The book follows a trajectory from concepts through models, methods, and case study analysis before revisiting the central problems in the further conceptual development of the field. In the process, the author ranges from the movements of lions in northern Zimbabwe to the urban jungles of Europe, and from the collapse of past societies to the social impacts of modern conflict. The many case studies and examples discussed in the book show how the concept of spatial resilience can generate valuable insights into the spatial dynamics of social-ecological systems and contribute to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time. Although it has been written primarily for students, this book will provide fascinating reading for interdisciplinary scientists at all career stages as well as for the interested public. "Graeme Cumming, central in the development of resilience thinking and theory, has produced a wonderful book on spatial resilience, the first ever on this topic. The book will become a shining star, a classic in the explosion of new ideas and approaches to studying and understanding social-ecological systems." Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden
Geographical Perspectives Strengthened by GIS in an Interdisciplinary Curriculum
Geographical Perspectives Strengthened by GIS in an Interdisciplinary Curriculum - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Geographical Perspectives Strengthened by GIS in an Interdisciplinary Curriculum write by Bo Ae Chun. This book was released on 2008. Geographical Perspectives Strengthened by GIS in an Interdisciplinary Curriculum available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. ?Pub Inc Although Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been favorably received as innovative and exciting tools in environmental education recently, there is a paucity of research into their effectiveness in enhancing meaningful learning in geography and related sciences, and also in studies that address how students learn GIS in the classroom. The primary purposes of this study were first to investigate how students' learning of attitudes and knowledge about the environment were affected when GIS-integrated place-based environmental education was introduced. Secondly, the study also aimed to find evidence of the effectiveness of GIS in improving the student's spatial thinking ability. The Children's Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scales (CHEAKS) were adopted to measure the temporal differences in the students' environmental attitudes and knowledge before and after the intervention of three different treatment conditions: the control group; the GPS-integrated fieldtrip activities group; and the GIS-integrated lessons and GPS-integrated fieldtrip activities group. Results of data analyses from the pre- and post-test indicated that students displayed a moderately favorable attitude toward the environment, but their attitudes were not greatly changed by environmental education, regardless of the types of methods used in this study. Although all students' knowledge of environmental issues increased after instruction in the three groups, the intervention of both GIS-integrated lessons and GPS-integrated fieldtrips was more effective than either GPS-integrated fieldtrips or non-GIS instruction. The results have some implications in the design of a curriculum for GIS-integrated interdisciplinary lessons. In order to maximize the effect of integrating GIS technology into the classroom, it is necessary to combine GPS fieldtrips with GIS lessons, instead of adding just GPS fieldtrips to the traditional environmental curriculum. Although a fieldtrip with a GPS device is also a good source of place-based learning, students are able to visualize the local data and look up the database behind the geo-visualization when a GPS fieldtrip is implemented with GIS lessons. The present study displayed the effect of GPS-integrated fieldtrips on the students' learning in a passive manner due to practical constraints. I had to work with intact groups and only three classes were available which were taught by the same instructor. Thus, a further study involving the administration of GIS-integrated lessons without GPS fieldtrips could reveal the effect of GPS-integrated fieldtrips. In addition, investigation of the compound effects of GIS-integrated lessons and GPS-integrated fieldtrips may be required to fully comprehend the determinants of students' spatial thinking abilities. To identify and evaluate the effect of GIS-integrated lessons on spatial thinking and geographical skills, students' conversations with their partners were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using discourse analysis. Students were interviewed and maps and posters were also examined to provide a full account of the context in and beyond the classroom. Results based on the students' conversations can be summarized as follows: students' collaborative learning and metacognition are not directly influenced by GIS-integrated lessons. That is, the amount of time students are exposed to GIS-integrated lessons session by session does not, on its own, motivate students' collaborative learning or metacognition. Rather, the instruction design seems to have a more significant effect on collaborative learning and metacognition. More active learning occurs when GIS is integrated with a student-centered class instead of a teacher-centered one. With regard to the effect of learning-with-GIS as compared with learning-about-GIS, the results reflected that learning-with-GIS classes seem to contribute to students' GIS learning almost equally or more than in learning-about-GIS classes even though any specific GIS functions are not intentionally stressed or taught. Students also perceive a series of GIS functions as a type of procedural knowledge such as data collection and data input, data input and data storage and retrieval, and data manipulation and data output. Findings based on the interviews, maps and posters revealed that the students' environmental conceptions were dramatically changed in terms of their awareness of connectedness regarding the idea of watershed. The lessons developed for this project also prove effective while using a watershed as an organizing principle. Moreover, the lessons of the present study are strengthened by GIS, which give students great control over spatial thinking and geovisualization.
