GO GIS DENMARK

A group of Danish geography/earth science teachers (K-12) visited ESRI, Redlands in March 1999. We were impressed.

Desire to introduce GIS in the Danish upper-secondary school, but no money!

Cooperation with the commercial data-suppliers in GIS and the Danish distributor of ESRI's software 
=> free programs and access to free datasets!!!

Four pilot projects winter 1999/2000 with good results

The Geografforlaget, The Association of Danish Geogra-
phers, Publishing Department, has established a GO GIS section consisting of six upper-secondary teachers of Geography

We plan to produce a Danish GIS-CD-ROM with an introduction to GIS, an ArcExplorer-tutorial and several case-studies (among them enhancements of the two cases, we will present to you today); funding is nearly arranged. 
Website with IMS-server on the way: WWW.GOGIS.DK

Geography/Earth science in Denmark

2 years of obligatory Geography  in the lower secondary school

1 year obligatory in upper-secondary school (11th year) -with the opportunity to choose an expanded course of 1 year more. (12th year)

The subject Geography consists of  equal parts of Natural Geography(Climate and Geology) and Human Geography(Population Development and Commercial Geography)

Tendencies towards new ways of teaching and studying. We will work more in blocks and more project organized. The students should learn how to work more independently and to cooperate in groups.

The use of information technology in schools is rapidly developing these years i.e. All computers have access to internet and schoolnetworks are widely used.

Case 1 - Aims and locality.

The aims:

-to study soils as a geological case in the obligatory course.

-to examine relationships between the natural landscape and the economy of today.

-to use Arcview GIS for the first time.

The locality of the main terminal moraine.

To the west we have plains formed by glacial streams and islands of still remaining  moraine from the Saale Glaciation. 

To the East the landscapes are built up of young moraines from the Weichel glaciation.

Introduction to theory of soils - Podzolic Soils and Brown soils

Koelkaer Outwash plain	Soervad  Old moraine from Saale	Vinderslev  Young moraine from Weichel

The students collect samples of soil from near their homes and analyze these samples in class

Using GIS to locate samples on the map.

Using the soil map to examine the sedimentary origin of the soils.

The students find the exact position of the samples by means of themes the map: DK200 - by adding a few themes and turning them on and off.

The class was divided in two halfs, one half was analyzing the text and the other half worked with ArcView GIS, 3 students pr. PC.

The zooming demanded too much of the network. Because of this only a few PC´s was working at the same time.

Maps: 

The digital map of types of soils in Denmark, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland 1999

1:200.000 vektormap from Kort- og matrikelstyrelsen, supplied to the school by Ringkjoebing County.

GISIkast3

The natural landscape and indicators of economy

Examination of relationships between the natural landscape and indicators of economy from the DK200 map

- Roads
- Built up areas
- Railways
- Heaths
- Woods
- Churches
- Estates, bigger farms

The students are asked to suggest relationships between the natural landscape and indicators of economic development  and to bring up ideas for further studies.

GISIkast7

Case 2 - The hurricane of the Century

Denmark was hit by the heaviest hurricane ever recorded Dec. 3rd 1999

Severe damages to buildings and forests, 6 died, 
breaches of dikes => flooding etc. 

Everybody from my part of Denmark can tell their own story of the hurricane => highly motivated class 

A perfect example of "before" and "after" 

Focus on topics relevant to the schools neighbourhood 
=> the hurricane's effects on the forests

Gathering of information to use in ArcView GIS: 

- technical obstacles; systems, no conversion, to new!  
- economical obstacles; data must be free 
- pedagogical obstacles, curriculum, time, language...

orkangif

pictures

"Basic practises"

Basic practises:
- demonstration in plenum
- used on local data (TOP10DK)
- PC and dataprojector 

Hands on exercises (2 per PC), mapping techniques 
- classification
- choice of maptype (legends)
- querying a map

Hands on exercises (2 per PC), working with tables
- sorting, querying
- adding fields, typing data

orkan2.apr (View: Soenderjylland)

"Before"

Establishing the best possible dataset for the forest Stensbaek Plantage before the hurricane:

- teacher has made a shapefile subdividing the forest into homogeneous regions (type of wood, age) on the basis of maps and ortophotos

- the class is organized in groups with different parts of the forest as their responsibility

- the groups makes field studies in the forest to supplement the shapefile and to record the percentage of fallen trees in each homogeneous region

- the records are added to the table by the groups (the teacher is very watchfull)

orkan1.apr (View: Type of forrest)
4 cm-kort, skovkort 95, ortofotos 99

=> skovkort1999

"After" - Groups of 2-3 with different problems to solve

On the basis of the digital data gathered each group shall make their own project/theme. First a "technical" phase. 

The results shall be presented to the class on PC and dataprojector, discussed with the class, improved and with the help of the teacher made available to all for further use. 

1. Make a view and add a new theme, where you can see the windspeed of the hurricane on the basis of data from The Danish Met. Institute

2. Make a view and add a new theme with a photo-documentation of the forest after the hurricane, use hotlinks to tif-files 

3. Make a view and add a new theme showing on large scale basis the amount of wood fallen in different forests in Denmark

4. Make a view and add a new theme showing the distribution of deciduous and coniferuous trees as well as other relevant areas in Stensbaek Plantage

5. Make a view and add a new theme showing the percentage of fallen trees in every homogenous region of Stensbaek Plantage.

6. Make a view and add a new theme showing the age of trees in every homogenous region of Stensbaek Plantage.

orkan1.apr 
(Age of forrest, Type of forrest)

orkan2.apr
(Windspeed, Hotlinks, Loss of wood)

"After" - Groups of 2-3 goes on

The "intellectual" phase. What new insight can we get from our dataset with the help of ArcView GIS?

The results shall be presented to the class on PC and dataprojector and a written documentation shall be handed in. 

7. Use the themes/views No. 1 and No. 3 to see the connection between windspeed and the amount of fallen wood in Denmark

8. Examine the relationship between soil, the distribution of decid./conif. wood and the percentage of trees fallen in Stensbaek Plantage. (No. 4 and No. 5) 

9. Examine the relationship between wood, the age of wood  and the percentage of trees fallen in Stensbaek Plantage. (Main map of forest, No.5 and No.6) 

Perspectives - "do" one more forest, participate in the public debate about the future forests in Denmark (economic, ecological, recreational considerations) 

To do:

orkan2.apr (Wind and forests)

orkan1.apr (Type and soil)
orkan1.apr (Age, type and %)

Concluding remarks

Concluding remarks:

GIS is highly motivating, the possibility to combine large datasets and proactive produce maps yourself gives a kick to students

Technological infrastructure is moving very fast in Denmark in these years, unfortunately the datasets aren't available in the desired degree.

Inservice-training of teachers in GIS is in demand.

The Danish tradition is to pay attention to all students and avoid disfavouring of week and poorer students (ex. without PC)

It's important, that all students are given a solid training in informationtechnology; if not we will use a lot of time teaching GIS instead of geography.

GIS as a tool will change geography to a subject where maps will play a larger role