Geospatial Education Collaborative (GEC)

Shasta College, Redding CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Geospatial Education Collaborative (GEC) project is advancing geospatial technology education and workforce preparedness, and is also increasing community awareness of geospatial technologies (GST) and their potential applications. The project is developing community college and university level general education courses in GST; promoting and expanding workplace internships for college students in governmental agencies, environmental consulting firms and non-profit community organizations; and providing outreach to K-12 schools by developing and providing GST exercises that meet educational content standards. The project is providing an opportunity for a community college and a university to collaboratively develop new general education courses that are exposing students to geospatial technologies and encouraging them to pursue educational and career opportunities in the geospatial field. The general education courses are demonstrating the potential for geospatial technologies to address contemporary concerns such as sustainable economic development, public health and environmental degradation. Geospatial projects with a community focus are bringing to the local and regional levels many of the global concerns that are being addressed by the general education courses. Students and the community are benefiting from projects that are building geographic databases, improving local planning efforts and facilitating communication through both hardcopy and interactive map products. Student interns are also developing essential workplace skills via exercises and projects that require data development, project workflow analysis, and quality control assessment. A strong formative evaluation model is helping to refine various activities ensure that students are effectively learning through the various experiences provided, and a summative evaluation is tracking the number of students who enter the GST program and ultimately enter the GST workforce.