Geospatial education in high schools: Curriculums, methodologies, and practices

Nowadays high school education throughout the world is expected to prepare the young people for understanding the twenty-first century globalization and adapting themselves in this fast-changing world. The ability of applying spatial thinking to real-world issues at a range of scales is essential for a responsible modern citizen and for an effective knowledge worker as well. Educators and students who can use geospatial technologies are more efficient spatial thinkers. That's why the geospatial education in high schools receives increasing attention worldwide. The adoption of geospatial technologies in high school education varies among and within countries in term of the status of geography course, information infrastructure, and teacher preparation. There is no general model toward the success in geospatial education. This paper focuses on finding the exemplars of curriculums, methodologies, and practices particularly suited to geospatial education in high school. Besides, GIS, GPS, and RS are the instructional tools traditionally used in geospatial education. The emergences of new technologies such as social media, interactive web-mapping platforms, and smartphones allow individuals or social groups to collect, georeference, and share geographic information. The applications of these technologies and their spatial data in high school geospatial education are also addressed.