February is Career and Technical Education (CTE) month. CTE is about helping learners attain skills and the documentation necessary to validate those skills in the workplace. Today, hundreds of thousands if not millions of students take a CTE course (or cross-listed course) to help expand their skills for future use in a potential job.
With the release of the “GIS Fundamentals Foundation” technical certification from Esri, high school and college students have an excellent way to document their knowledge and skills – regardless of the professional path they are on.
In CTE, GIS (or "geospatial" keywords) are placed in different “career clusters”, varying from state to state. I’ve generated the breakdown below, based on the 2021 K12 standards analysis. Consider these numbers as starting points, rather than data etched in stone.
Nearly every state today has “GIS” in multiple places in their curriculum standards – science, social studies, and CTE. And where you don’t see “GIS”, you can see “Critical thinking”, “problem solving”, “data analysis”, and science or social science “process skills” throughout all standards of learning. These broad terms are well addressed through data analysis technologies like GIS.
Get your students technical skills that will help their initial employability – and salary. Regardless of your career cluster or program of study, get a GIS technical certification in their mix of credentials. Your students will thank you for it down the road.
More information on GIS in CTE. >>
