Didactical Concept
Competencies
Teaching with the help of GIS supports development of the ability to perceive and determine spatial relationships.
Different groups of researchers and educators working in the frames of European projects tried to make lists of competencies developed while using GIS tools.
Amongst skills related to map reading and understanding, S. Bednarz (2001) listed the following competencies:
- —Determining map information layers and decomposing the map into separate layers – identifying components of map presentations, including reference, background and thematic layers;
- Aggregating data - indicating means of generalising map contents; vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities;
- Correlating data - indicating map contents that are interrelated and interdependent (e.g. soil type and habitat fertility);
- Evaluating spatial distribution of phenomena: either regularity (e.g. higher population density in urban areas compared to rural areas), or randomness (e.g. occurrence of natural disasters such as fires);
- Assessing similarities between objects (e.g. vegetation types within the same climate zone in various locations on Earth);
- Forming hierarchies between objects (e.g. identifying various parts of the river, its tributaries and finally the borders of the river basin);
- Map measurements (e.g. distance, area, calculations according to the map scale or even taking into account map projection).
Results of the EduGIS Academy project revealed that in the group of competencies that are challenging to the students, and have a direct relation with the science subjects (physics, chemistry and mathematics), are skills associated with spatial data and databases. Here we can find primarily:
- Classifying data - quantitative and qualitative methods;
- Reading, on the map, the results of these classifications (e.g. regarding continuous and discrete phenomena);
- Sorting the data in the ascending or descending order, identifying maximum and minimum values, determining mean values;
- Formulating queries, i.e., simply speaking, the ability to search the data according to specific criteria: value, data attribute, boundary conditions.
See more information about the GIS competencies developed within:
