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Why GIS: Critical Thinking

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Image Gallery 4 - Salmon Habitat


Ayres

Historical infrared images - Warm Lake, Idaho

“Landsat Imagery”. ESRI. accessed February 1, 2014. <http://changematters.esri.com/compare>”

 

from Salmon in the Columbia: Water Quality

 

Studying the history of salmon in the Columbia River Basin involves a good deal more than examining traditional historical documents. To fully appreciate the role of salmon and their decline in the history of the region students need to explore native legends, explorers’ diaries, historical photographs, and records of fish export among other documents. Such sources are invaluable in understanding native American use of fish and the history of the fishing industry, forestry, mining, and other practices that have affected the salmon population. However, the ability to interpret areal maps like the one at the right, to understand the basics of the biology of the salmon life cycle, and to read and interpret graphical information with varying degrees of mathematical understanding are all important to a broader and deeper understanding of the story of salmon in the river. In other words, it is important for students to be able to think critically across several domains of knowledge.

 

Critical thinking involves a host of mental skills and attributes as the word cloud of terms related to the concept suggests.

Image 4 - Spatial Thinking

Critical Thinking

“Critical Thinking Word Cloud”, based on terms related to the concept Critical Thinking as found online at Critical and Creative Thinking - Bloom's Taxonomy

As you work your way through the activities in the accompanying lesson you will see that students are being asked to engage and practice many of the skills suggested. For example, they must:

compare and contrast infrared areal images looking for vegetative change,
analyze changes in river sedimentation by examining a thirty year series of photographs,
interpret patterns in numeric data to create a predictive model relating levels of siltation to salmon egg survival rates,
query data to form and test hypotheses about the various factors that might affect salmon survival, and
identify and assess actions related to local environmental issues.

Critical thinking skills like these are acquired through long term, repeated, and deliberate practice (van Gelder, 2005; Ericsson & Charness, 1994) and GIS activities provide a rich playground in which to provide that practice. As the model below suggests, GIS software is, in fact, a problem solving and critical thinking tool.

Image 5 - Thinking Geographically

Critical Thinking


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