The Geospatial Semester: Concurrent Enrollment in Geospatial Technologies

Geospatial technologies are becoming more ubiquitous in our society; however, efforts to sustainably and effectively bring these tools to secondary education have proven challenging. An innovative program in Virginia, the geospatial semester (GSS), is described. The program offers high school students the opportunity to learn about geospatial technologies and apply them to local problems, and students can earn university credit. This article shares details of the program, along with examples of student work. Assessment of the program's impact shows that GSS students have increased spatial vocabularies and improved performance in making claims and providing evidence compared with non-GSS students.