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March 2015
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
K-12 Educational Programs
K-12 educational programs are offered throughout Virgin-
ia to reach educators across regions and school districts
and are tailored to meet the Virginia’s Standards of Learn-
ing (SOLs)
. The integration of SOLs with instruc-
tion and curricula is paramount to facilitate classroom
adoption by teachers. Although workshop activities are
designed for Virginia residents, the educational materials
developed are relevant to teachers in other states, as well
as to educators in other parts of the world.
K-12 educational programs not only incorporate tech-
nical skills; they are also designed to introduce students
to spatial reasoning and analysis. In addition to programs
referenced within this article, James Madison University’s
Geospatial Semester
, the Virginia Space Grant Consortium’s Geo-
TREK program,
), and
VirginiaView’s precollege geospatial workshops
) provide educators across the Com-
monwealth with a diverse set of geospatial training mod-
els designed to encourage spatial reasoning, thinking, and
exploration.
Some examples of available resources include: the
VirginiaView Geocoin Adventure, which was developed
through a partnership between the eXtension Map@syst
community of practice
and VirginiaView, provides educators across
the world with the resources necessary to integrate in-
troductory geography concepts and educational materials
as free online written tutorials. These lesson plans, text-
based tutorials, video tutorials, and other educational re-
sources, are available on-line at
.
VirginiaView also provides precollege workshops at var-
ious venues across the state. In some instances, a need
for a workshop is identified by VirginiaView instructors.
In other instances, communities or school districts pro-
vide specific requests. Table 1 provides examples of work-
shops/events that VirginiaView organized or supported
from June 2013 through June 2014.
Higher Educational Programs
Whereas precollege efforts promote geospatial awareness
and often serve as the foundations for geospatial educa-
tion, a breadth of solid educational options at the college
and university levels is essential. In Virginia, the four-year
colleges and universities have historically offered GIS and
remote sensing educational opportunities, and continue to
provide students with geospatial certificate options, minors,
majors, and offer geospatial graduate programs at both the
