Use of GIS in schools - is just beginning

I have a GIS experience which could be of some use.  We purchased the ArcView for Schools and Libraries "bundle" which at £495 is a bit pricey, but comes with more than enough kit to keep you happy for many a month (including a CD of British data worth about £700 for free!).

We have this system up and running on the school network, but staff will need some training to get it fully used by students.  So far we have used it to produce a map of the home addresses of students at the school using postcode data and creating separate files using data from the school's database.  

The other data sets which come with the bundle are serious stuff with digital atlases of the world and lots of data for the USA.  As yet we have not begun to get to grips with the breadth of the material available, but we will get some tasks up and running based on home addresses or addresses of relatives.  These can be located by county or by country or by postcode district.

I have some other web sites where GIS is available.
www.gis.about.com - a huge set of links here.
www.census.gov - try the TIGER mapping facility here.
www.usgs.gov - draw your own drainage basin maps or surf a basin for lots of details.

Apologies if these details are not fully complete, but please get back to me if you want to know more.


Steve Richardson
Head of Geography
Bryanston School
Blandford
Dorset DT11 0PX