Newswise — Schools need ways to catch up with the geographic information technology that permeates our society and use it to teach spatial thinking and social science inquiry, says a researcher specializing in the learning sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Josh Radinsky, UIC assistant professor of the learning sciences and curriculum studies, has received a five-year Faculty Early Career Development Award of $707,000 from the National Science Foundation to study the use of GIS, or geographic information systems, in Chicago Public Schools and colleges.
His research will determine how middle school and college students and teachers can use geographic information systems to investigate African American and Latino migrations throughout history.
"In social science classrooms, there are few opportunities to study the history of everyday people -- especially African American and Latino American people. We tend to study famous individuals or societal problems," Radinsky said.
"This project will use census data and GIS to help students study the question 'Who are we?' over American history. Census data is a flawed mirror, but it’s a historical record that can help us learn to tell the histories of all Americans."
Radinsky said relatively few Chicago students have been exposed formally to GIS in school.
"But the vast majority has looked at a Google map. They use GIS to find out where movies are playing. They may have GIS apps on their cell phones," he said.
Radinsky will work with a team of four Chicago Public Schools middle school teachers and four college instructors to design, teach and study data mapping projects in their classrooms. He also will teach the projects to student teachers in UIC’s elementary teaching program.
Radinsky holds joint appointments in the UIC College of Education and the university’s interdisciplinary learning sciences Ph.D. program. He is a member of UIC's Learning Sciences Research Institute, a research center established to improve educational practice through research, development, and outreach. He maintains a website on GIS for history teachers and students at www.gisforhistory.org.
The NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award supports junior faculty in the sciences who have demonstrated excellence in research, education, and the integration of education and research.
UIC ranks among the nation's leading research universities and is Chicago's largest university with 26,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.
For more information about UIC, please visit www.uic.edu
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