GIS in the Social Sciences:

Tools for Undergraduate Courses in Anthropology

Diana Stuart Sinton, Ph.D.

GIS Program Director,

National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education

Teaching and Learning with GIS

Benefits Challenges Case study: African anthropology GIS at NITLE

Why GIS?

Material is inherently spatial – use GIS to organize, display, and analyze spatial data.

Great technology for projects that are inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, and collaborative.

Connections between curriculum and “spatial learning.”

Marketable skill that can expand work or grad school opportunities regardless of academic background.

Spatial Learning?Intelligence Core Operations

Linguisticsyntax, phonology, semantics,

pragmatics

Musical pitch, rhythm, timbre

Logical-mathematical

number, categorization, relations

Spatialaccurate mental visualization,

mental transformation of images

Bodily-kinestheticcontrol of one's own body, control in handling objects

Interpersonalawareness of others' feelings, emotions, goals, motivations

Intrapersonalawareness of one's own feelings,

emotions, goals, motivations

Naturalistrecognition and classification of

objects in the environment

Howard Gardner, Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Spatial Learning and Geography

modified from Golledge (2002) as described in Bednarz and Bednarz, 2004, Geography education: the glass is half-full and it’s getting fuller, The Professional Geographer 56: 22-27

Space Concepts and Relations: the Bases of Geographic Knowledge

location

place-specific identity

boundaries

magnitude

time

distributions

regionsframes of reference

orientation & direction

spatial hierarchies

pattern, clustering, dispersion

spatial association

density and distance decay

flow & diffusion

Spatial Learning and GIS

adapted from West, 2003, Student attitudes and the impact of GIS on thinking skills and motivation, Journal of Geography 102: 267-274

Level of GIS Bloom’s GeographicalComplexity Function Taxonomy Inquiry

Generating new info

Spatial analysis

Data analysis

Data

Datum

Layout, output

Query, Select by Theme, GeoProcessing

Chart / View / Query

Theme / View / Attribute Table

Attribute

Evaluation

Synthesis

Analysis / Application

Comprehension

Knowledge

How Ought?

What Impact?

How / Why?

Where?

What?

Why not GIS ?

Just a tool, not a cure-allSteep learning curve initially – can require significant commitment of time to learn software well and reach the analysis stage

Change in pedagogical style

Investment of money (hardware, software, data, training) and time

Garbage in, Garbage out

Lake of the Woods 27 27077 1784.0634 4076 4597 1576 2037

Ferry 53 53019 2280.2319 6295 7150 2247 3280

Stevens 53 53065 2529.9794 30948 39965 11241 15454

Okanogan 53 53047 5306.1800 33350 38596 12654 16828

Pend Oreille 53 53051 1445.0286 8915 11788 3395 4426

Boundary 16 16021 1279.2987 8332 9840 2857 4252

Lincoln 30 30053 3746.0908 17481 18691 6668 8777

Flathead 30 30029 5232.0306 59218 72458 22834 29316

Glacier 30 30035 3124.4572 12121 12524 3816 5985

Toole 30 30101 1943.2598 5046 4653 1922 2486

Liberty 30 30051 1485.9458 2295 2332 788 1120

Hill 30 30041 2917.3611 17654 17299 6426 8788

Sheridan 30 30091 1686.5827 4732 4228 1899 2332

Divide 38 38023 1279.9633 2899 2305 1193 1447

Burke 38 38013 1121.4170 3002 2194 1252 1506

Renville 38 38075 883.7720 3160 2779 1209 1560

Bottineau 38 38009 1710.0681 8011 7113 3105 4030

Rolette 38 38079 943.6554 12772 14336 4150 6262

Towner 38 38095 1051.6146 3627 2950 1433 1817

Cavalier 38 38019 1503.6905 6064 4896 2375 3032

Pembina 38 38067 1111.7749 9238 8375 3555 4577

Kittson 27 27069 1095.0149 5767 5279 2274 2833

Roseau 27 27135 1670.9970 15026 16122 5415 7695

Blaine 30 30005 4226.2541 6728 7174 2379 3358

Phillips 30 30071 5197.3383 5163 4744 1931 2537

Valley 30 30105 5055.5539 8239 8136 3268 4110

Daniels 30 30019 1421.8024 2266 1959 919 1115

Raw data

versus

. . . meaningful information

“It’s not something you would see until you actually saw it.”

Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics:

What is your generic term for a sweetened carbonated beverage?

     a. soda (52.97%)     b. pop (25.08%)     c. coke (12.38%)     d. tonic (0.67%)     e. soft drink (5.89%)     f. lemonade (0.01%)     g. cocola (0.29%)     h. fizzy drink (0.14%)     i. dope (0.03%)     j. other (2.55%)

     (10669 respondents)

Harvard Linguistics Survey, http://hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/

soda

pop

coke

African Anthropology

countries, 2002

vegetation habitats, 2002

petroleum consumption per person, 2000

energy consumption per person, 2000

proportion of women with HIV/AIDS, 1999

male to female birth ratio, 2000

roads, 2000

malaria cases, 2002

“Tribal Map of Africa” from Africa: Its People and Their Culture, G. P. Murdock, 1959

Ethnic areas (c. 1959) versus National Boundaries (c. 1885 at BerlinConference, under direction of Otto von Bismark)

spatial learning & geography

liberal arts education technology

GIS