APPLICATIONS OF GOOGLE MY MAPS FOR SPATIAL LEARNING IN FIELD SCIENCE

Google My Maps can provide high-impact, collaborative, active learning experiences for students in environmental or earth science courses from elementary school through college. My Maps assignments introduce spatial databases with a free web tool, teach basic field methods in recording observations, and allow students to collaborate to create a resource that can be used both in the classroom and shared online. Google My Maps offers a seamless way to engage students in authentic learning in a virtual environment, which can be applied equally well to facilitate accessible and inclusive learning in a field, classroom, or online setting.

Our presentation will explain the features of Google My Maps; provide ideas for using My Maps in an educational context for lab assignments, virtual field trips, and field trip planning or reports; and discuss the program’s limitations. Using examples from an introductory undergraduate environmental science course and an upper-level hydrology lab, we explain what works and doesn’t work while using My Maps in the field. Our presentation will also feature an interactive component where participants can add observations to a collaborative map and explore existing My Maps projects.