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Survey Question Ideas Regarding the MAGIP Grants & Scholarships

  • 07/12/2012 3:10 PM
    Message # 1007466
    Meghan Burns (Administrator)

    After meeting with the Education Committee today, we have some questions to pose to the membership.

    In order to best serve the education community (including teachers, students, and administrators) what should be the goal of the Education Committee in bringing GIS to schools?

    What do we the Montana GIS Professionals want to accomplish at the K-12 level?

    We would also like your input and ideas regarding MAGIP's goal of supplying grants and scholarships toward spatial education.

    How can MAGIP better support the K- 12 community?

    What can MAGIP do to increase participation in the K-12 grants & higher education scholarship process?

    What can MAGIP do to improve the geospatial and GPS trunks to make them revelant/useful?

    http://www.montananaturalist.org/teacher-resources/traveling-trunks/

    Thank you for your thoughts!

     

    Last modified: 07/12/2012 3:18 PM | Meghan Burns (Administrator)
  • 07/12/2012 3:14 PM
    Reply # 1007475 on 1007466
    Meghan Burns (Administrator)

    Questions posed by Jane Horton:

    ·         What are teachers' definitions of GIS

    ·         Do teachers think of GIS as data and how these data become spatial    and gets manipulated into useful applications and products

    ·         Have they ever used the geospatial trunks supplied from Missoula Natural History Museum?  Here is a link if you don’t know about the trunks/GPS options http://www.montananaturalist.org/teacher-resources/traveling-trunks/  (The geospatial trunk is currenlty not available)

    ·         Is there a ‘good’ time to submit applications for K-12 grants?

    ·         Is there a ‘good’ time to submit applications for higher education scholarships?

    ·         Should there be numerous K-12 grants, one grant or two or three?

    ·         Should K-12 grants be $1,000, $1,500 or 2,500?  Or more?  Or less?

    ·         Should there be one, two, more higher education scholarships?

    ·         Should higher education scholarships be as above?  Or just one, state-wide scholarship for maybe $5,000?

     

  • 07/12/2012 9:05 PM
    Reply # 1007897 on 1007466
    Anonymous

    It would be nice to see representitives from the K-12 community along with representitives from the college communities. That would give them a chance to see what we are all about and give them a chance to give us some ideas about what they are facing from within the school system.

    Getting GIS approved as an elective that would count towards college acceptance would be a giant step right now most counselors look at GIS as a filler course that the students can fill out a schedule with not with something that is going to help them in the future. Students have to have so many credits in college entrance courses and GIS is not one of them but should that student decide to go into any of the sciences, forestry or engineering they will all be exposed to GIS, better in high school than in college.

    Maybe we should have a student page where they would have to sign in so we could get a handle on how many students might be interested in GIS. It could also explain scholarship opportunities and possibly get some input from professors in GIS and Geography. Most students, teachers and especially counselors don't understand the power of GIS or even what it can be used for.

    Recruiters, how about getting some people that are working in the GIS community to visit schools, talk about jobs and opportunities in the GIS community.

    Internships, most of the students that I have had contact with want jobs how about talking to some employers? These students would work cheap and get a good feel for the direction they might want to go. If counselors knew about jobs they would be more likely to push students in our direction. These counselors also need to know about the scholarships available that also would cause some interest.

    We somehow must make MAGIP more visible, GIS Day has pretty much died here in the Flathead so we need to maybe have a contest like some of the other states do with science http://ucop.edu/mesa/mesa_day_rules/MESA_USA_Wind_Energy_2010-2011.pdf. I'm not saying that we should do a science project of this sort but make up our own GIS project that would have to be done using ESRI software and submitted in video format. Use teams of 3-5 people with no more than 2 teams from each school, winner would recieve some sort of grant that we could possibly get donated. Give six weeks to complete the project. Assign a MAGIP member as a mentor to help answer questions and help with the project.

    Just some ideas I've been thinking about.

    Thanx for asking,

    Denny

     

  • 07/13/2012 2:47 PM
    Reply # 1008706 on 1007466
    Meghan Burns (Administrator)

    Thanks Denny!  I agree that we should include higher ed on the survey as well.

    Maybe one question should ask survey participants or what their job title is, for teachers what grade they teach, or if they are students what grade they are in currently.

    I am heading up the committee to determine what MAGIP will do to promote GIS Day this year.  Let me know if you would like to be on the committee!  We have talked about continuing what the Montana State Library did last year with the open house at the Capitol Rotunda.  But, like you I would like to make this a state-wide celebration.

    I like your idea of having a competition.  MAGIP just formed an ArcGIS Online Group.  Maybe participants could post their "entries" there?  Just a thought ...

    I will be sending out a request for participation on the GIS Day planning committee soon!

    Thanks again! Meghan

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