Move over peanut butter and jelly... here come computer science and maps

[Kylie]

There are many parallels between learning computer science and GIS. A team of computer science students at Harvey Mudd College has made an activity, along with supplemental materials, that introduces the two to young learners. We're looking for feedback and how you'd use Vacation Locations with your class.

In Vacation Locations, students learn about automation, conditionals, looping, and functions as they use a map to choose where to go on vacation. A vacation spot picked, students can continue and apply what they've learned by writing pseudocode to choose a spot for dinner. If interested in doing more computer mapping, they can use a participatory GIS data collection project to share their chosen vacation spots and explore those picked by others.

A teacher guide and a student worksheet (Google Doc or PDF) accompany the activity.

And as always, we'd love your feedback! Share it with us by filling out this survey.

Bye for now — I'm off to the World's Largest Ketchup Bottle!