Can GIS use in high school bolster college geography enrollments? The impact of the Geospatial Semester

Recruiting undergraduate students is a significant challenge for undergraduate geography programs. Few students have robust exposure to geography in secondary school and the major has low name recognition for entering first year students. In fact, geography is often a “found” major on many campuses with students coming to the major after a general education course. But, does it need to be this way? Can geography programs take a more proactive role in building a pipeline of prospective students that is not solely tied to supporting AP Human geography teachers? In this paper, we describe an alternative path for university departments to build strong recruiting pathways, sharing the successes and challenges of building the connections and the learning advantages that students gain through early exposure to geospatial technologies. We focus on the Geospatial Semester, a dual enrollment program between James Madison University and participating school districts in Virginia (and beyond) that began in 2005. We share how departments can build a successful partnership with high schools and the process of sustaining such a program within a university setting. We will also describe the research we have done on the learning gains the Geospatial Semester provides to participating students and how extended use of geospatial technology bolters students’ spatial thinking skills.