Geospatial Education Collaborative (GEC)

地理空间教育合作项目正在推进地理空间技术教育和劳动力准备，并提高社区对地理空间技术及其潜在应用的认识。 该项目正在开发社区学院和大学一级的GST普通教育课程;促进和扩大大学生在政府机构、环境咨询公司和非营利社区组织的工作场所实习;并通过开发和提供符合教育内容标准的GST练习，向K-12学校提供外联服务。该项目为一所社区学院和一所大学提供了一个合作开发新的普通教育课程的机会，使学生接触地理空间技术，并鼓励他们在地理空间领域寻求教育和职业机会。普通教育课程展示了地理空间技术在解决可持续经济发展、公共卫生和环境退化等当代关切问题方面的潜力。 以社区为重点的地理空间项目正在将普通教育课程正在处理的许多全球关切问题带到地方和区域各级。学生和社区正在受益于建立地理数据库、改善地方规划工作和通过硬拷贝和交互式地图产品促进交流的项目。 学生实习生还通过练习和项目开发基本的工作技能，这些项目需要数据开发，项目工作流程分析和质量控制评估。 一个强大的形成性评估模型有助于完善各种活动，确保学生通过提供的各种经验有效地学习，总结性评估跟踪进入GST计划并最终进入GST劳动力的学生人数。

The Geospatial Education Collaborative (GEC) project is advancing geospatial technology education and workforce preparedness, and is also increasing community awareness of geospatial technologies (GST) and their potential applications. The project is developing community college and university level general education courses in GST; promoting and expanding workplace internships for college students in governmental agencies, environmental consulting firms and non-profit community organizations; and providing outreach to K-12 schools by developing and providing GST exercises that meet educational content standards. The project is providing an opportunity for a community college and a university to collaboratively develop new general education courses that are exposing students to geospatial technologies and encouraging them to pursue educational and career opportunities in the geospatial field. The general education courses are demonstrating the potential for geospatial technologies to address contemporary concerns such as sustainable economic development, public health and environmental degradation. Geospatial projects with a community focus are bringing to the local and regional levels many of the global concerns that are being addressed by the general education courses. Students and the community are benefiting from projects that are building geographic databases, improving local planning efforts and facilitating communication through both hardcopy and interactive map products. Student interns are also developing essential workplace skills via exercises and projects that require data development, project workflow analysis, and quality control assessment. A strong formative evaluation model is helping to refine various activities ensure that students are effectively learning through the various experiences provided, and a summative evaluation is tracking the number of students who enter the GST program and ultimately enter the GST workforce.