GeoSciTeach is an application for android smartphones. It provides opportunities to make sense of scientific phenomena through the collection, manipulation and visualisation of data. Its strength lies in how it helps support student geospatial and spatial thinking, ideas that are central to science.
GeoSciTeach enables the user to collect data and manipulate it in new ways, developing their spatial skills as well as enhancing their understanding of scientific phenomena. The app allows students to collect large data sets and then analyse them, both individually and in collaboration with one another. It is fully customisable which means teachers are able to modify and adapt the application to meet the needs of their students. It can therefore be adapted to support a range of users and contexts: from Year 7 students (11-12 year olds) carrying out ecological studies around the school grounds to post-16 year old students investigating the shapes of molecules as they consider chemical reactions.
More generally, GeoSciTeach lends itself to developing skills in the understanding of the nature science and knowledge. For example, how new technology is involved in the collection and analysis of data, how it can be used to evaluate the ‘scientific method’ and its role in collaborative learning and sharing of ideas.
GeoSciTeach can be customised for use beyond the Science curriculum across the curriculum. In History, for example, it could be used to explore epidemics and John Snow’s work on cholera. In Modern Foreign languages it could be used to support looking at language use throughout the world and their derivation. In a wider sense, the app also encourages cross-curricular fertilisation and could easily support collapsed project days.
GeoSciTeach 