Geographical Association

As well as knowing how to use GIS tools and functions, students need to know 'about' GIS. This can include knowing how it is used in types of work. It can also involve understanding how data is collected and the legal and ethical questions that can be involved.

Why GIS?

Funded by software producer ESRI and the Ordnance Survey, and made in conjunction with the Geographical Association, this DVD was given to every secondary school in the UK. The DVD gives examples of how GIS is being used in different kinds of work, such as for modelling transport and land use for the London Olympics in 2012, tackling crime and in emergency planning.

What is GIS? (PowerPoint Presentation)

The presentation gives an overview of the history, components, features and some sample applications of mapping with GIS. The samples are US-based, but have obvious UK parallels. Accompanying notes give additional commentary on each slide.

OS Mastermap in Action

This part of the OS web site gives examples of ways in which Mastermaps in GIS are used in different types of work. Some examples are in health, local government, transport and insurance. 

GIS technology in our society

This part of the ESRI website gives access to a set of videos in which different applications of GIS are described.

GIS in every walk of life

This is an animation that could be used with students to show the many ways in which their lives are linked to applications of GIS. This is shown through a events during a typical day.

Mapping with GIS – when seeing should not always mean believing

A PowerPoint presentation by Oliver Tomlinson, University of Derby

This presentation helps develop an understanding of GIS by raising questions about the nature of the data that can be used. The availability of more complex mapping tools has also made it possible to be more selective in what is produced.

Support for GIS - What do I need to teach about GIS? (Word Document)

This document gives some basic ideas that can be further developed with illustrative material on ways in which GIS is affecting people's lives.

News Articles about GIS

BBC Article: Will crime maps work?

This article raises questions about the ways in which crime data is being used in GIS. The site links to a BBC radio broadcast in which the matter is discussed in some detail.

Times Online: Spy plane employed to shame owners of heat-loss homes

This news article reports on ways in which aircraft are being used by local councils to monitor and map heat loss from buildings. There are concerns about what they might do with this information. There is further information on the Hotmapping company website.

Daily Mail Online: Google 'burglar's charter' street cameras given the all clear by privacy watchdog

Street level views can now be accessed for many areas on Google Maps. Taking these images involves photography that may include people and their homes, without getting permission from individuals or homeowners to be photographed and put on the website. This raises legal and other issues that relate to the use of GIS.

Funded by software producer ESRI and the Ordnance Survey, and made in conjunction with the Geographical Association, this DVD was given to every secondary school in the UK. The DVD gives examples of how GIS is being used in different kinds of work, such as for modelling transport and land use for the London Olympics in 2012, tackling crime and in emergency planning.

Teacher Jamie Buchanon-Dunlop and his students show how they are using Google Earth to simulate emergency planning in the event of an earthquake in San Francisco.

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