Twenty-first century teachers must embrace innovative practices and tools for relevant instruction that motivate and prepare students for the future. However, a gap between available technology, such as geospatial technologies, and those used for instructional technologies prevails. This study set out to discover if high school geography teachers'…

Marsh et al.'s tests of appropriate spatial relationship concepts were administered to groups of college students to determine whether learning GIS enhances students' overall ability to generate and recognize fundamental spatial relationship concepts. 119 undergraduate students enrolled in various GIS courses and in non-GIS courses participated in…

Geospatial weather data is readily available to learners. However, the interpretation and understanding of this data requires the utilization of geospatial thinking skills. This study examined the impacts of a Web-based, collaborative inquiry Hurricane Irma GIS learning module on AP environmental science students' hurricane knowledge and spatial…

This article provides a description and discussion of an exploratory research study that examined the effects of using geospatial technology (GST) on high school students' spatial skills and spatial-relations content knowledge. It presents results that support the use of GST to teach spatially dependent content. It also provides indication of an…

In this article, participatory geographic information systems GIS (PGIS) is explored and established as a powerful platform for geographic education. PGIS pedagogy can help educators meet diverse learning objectives pertaining to: (1) local knowledge and place-based thinking; (2) community engagement; (3) field mapping with geospatial…

Advances in the Google Earth virtual globe and the concomitant Keyhole Markup Language (KML) are providing educators with a convenient platform to cultivate and assess one's place location knowledge (PLK). This article presents a general framework and associated implementation methods for the online testing of PLK using Google Earth. The proposed…

Knowledge around geospatial technologies and learning remains sparse, inconsistent, and overly anecdotal. Studies are needed that are better structured; more systematic and replicable; attentive to progress and findings in the cognate fields of science, technology, engineering, and math education; and coordinated for multidisciplinary approaches.…

This article explores the adoption of geographic information system (GIS) knowledge and skills through in-service training for high school geography teachers in Taiwan. Through statistical analysis of primary data collected from a census of Taiwan's high school geography teachers, it explores what motivates these teachers to undertake GIS…

The ability to recognize distortions of, for example, areas, angles, and landmass shapes in global-scale map projections, is an important part of critical map reading and use. This study investigates the cues used by individuals when they assess distortion on global-scale map projections. It was hypothesized that landmass shape would be a dominant…

This article presents a design-based research study of the implementation of an energy unit developed for middle school students. The unit utilized Google Earth and a geographic information system (GIS) to support student understanding of the world's energy resources and foster their spatial thinking skills. Findings from the prototype study…