Spatial Thinking in Education: Importance, Implications, and Strategies
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02-06-2023 07:51 AM
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JosephKerski
Dr Yirgalem Habte from the University of North Florida and Dr Joseph Kerski from Esri and the University of Denver recently collaborated on a series of videos focused on the importance, implications, and strategies for implementing spatial thinking in the educational curriculum. It is an honor to meet the many professors, researchers, campus facility managers, and students during my face-to-face university visits and virtual webinars during the course of each year as part of the support provided by the Esri Education Team, and meeting Dr Habte was one of the most wonderful days I spent on any recent campus visit.
The following topics were discussed in this set of 3 videos:
We begin the video series with our reflections about what spatial thinking is and why it is important. Yirgalem’s definition of spatial thinking is that “it involves analyzing, interpreting, and applying the concept of distance, location, and path in daily human activities.” Yirgalem draws parallels to how psychologists conceptualize spatial thinking and built bridges to visual thinking. Yirgalem says that “As a geographer, my understanding of spatial thinking is the ability, skill, and habits to understand and find meaning in the shape, size, orientation, pattern, location, distance, direction or movement, of objects, processes or phenomena.” He describes aspects of our lives where we think spatially and then in education, discussed how spatial thinking contributes better theoretical understanding and educational practice.
Next, after discussing ties to geoliteracy, Joseph discusses his definition of spatial thinking, as a grouping of 3, 4, and then 3 elements: "Identifying, analyzing, and understanding the location, scale, patterns, and trends of the geographic and temporal relationships among data, phenomena, and issues." We both then discussed the importance of time—the temporal component—in spatial thinking. Yirgalem brings in one of his favorite Japanese sayings that touches on the power of time in changing the value and relevance of objects and phenomena.
Next, we discuss that even more important than these definitions is the work we are engaged in, together with the geospatial education community, to ensure that spatial thinking is supported, taught, and put to use in education and in society. One of our goals, along with the National Research Council's report Learning to Think Spatially, is to cultivate the spatial thinking "habit of mind." This habit of mind is the geographic perspective on how the world works, including how systems function, how and why certain relationships exist, and also how we might approach and solve problems.
How can we cultivate spatial thinking? Dr Habte refers to the study of human intellect’s three broad but correlated domains: verbal ability, numerical ability, and spatial ability. We pay much attention, particularly at the primary and secondary school level, in the first two. However, as spatial ability plays an important role in academic achievement, especially in learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, we need to pay it the attention it deserves. Spatial intelligence is important for children as they learn other subjects. Yirgalem then discusses observations that he made on his own son’s developing spatial thinking skills as a toddler. This began with his son’s understanding the concept of location, and pathway: How to reach Point B from Point A while simultaneously developing his own motor and conceptual skills. What could be our measure of success in spatial thinking in education? One way is to assess the number and variety of activities in the curriculum where spatial thinking is used. There is scientific evidence showing that spatial thinking is one of the core domains of human intellect to acquire knowledge and solve problems. 
Hands-on work in solving problems can be achieved through the application of geotechnologies—GIS, remote sensing, GNSS, and web mapping. We discuss the work that nonprofit educational institutions, Esri and other private companies, universities and community colleges, government agencies, and others have been doing to promote spatial thinking through geotechnologies. We state that this work must extend beyond its traditional home in geography and GIScience, to business, engineering, data science, history, economics, sociology, and elsewhere throughout the educational system. However, there is still an important role for geography and GIScience practitioners and instructors: Indeed, geography and GIScience practitioners and researchers need to play a key and foundational leadership role in aiding colleagues in other disciplines to be able to understand where and how to implement spatial thinking concepts in their curricula (and listen to their needs, too!). We end that discussion with the statement: “If our goal is to see spatial thinking through geotechnologies embedded throughout the educational curriculum, from young ages and in multiple disciplines—just imagine the incoming spatial thinking and geotechnology skills that incoming undergraduates at any university could have in the future!” 
We then discuss the implications of such a focus: We would expect better student achievement in learning science and math due to the integration of spatial thinking in classroom learning. In addition, students will seek to enroll in colleges and universities that focus on spatial literacy. This will create a fertile ground for expanding spatial thinking to other courses and programs in higher education. These students will be accustomed to asking “what’s where, why is it there, and why should we care?” They will be familiar with spatial analytical tools and using maps as not just reference documents (where something is) but as research tools (why something is where it is and the spatial patterns that variables reveal). They will be comfortable asking thoughtful question sand solving problems, equipped with geotechnologies, statistics, and other tools. They will thus be empowered to be a positive change agent no matter what discipline they focus on and no matter what sector of society (nonprofit, academia, government agency, or private industry) in which they work. We then discuss the need to change our traditional approach of teaching spatial science to make the subject more relevant, practical, and applicable to daily life. In our view, geotechnologies represent the most powerful tools we have in our hands to foster applied spatial thinking. These technologies have already started improving student engagement and enhance their spatial thinking. Access to free spatial data through open data portals, and technologies such as GPS, remote sensing, scanning and web-based GIS maps and apps have a profound impact on the growing demand of spatial thinking. These technologies also enable learners to capture their own data—on noise, weather, water quality, litter, animals, planets, historical sites, community gardens, points of interest, and many other types of data. They can use data from open data platforms including ArcGIS Hub sites and the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. The Living Atlas apps such as the World Water Balance enable students to examine maps and data on evapotranspiration and precipitation over space and time, globally. The Landsat Imagery Explorer app enables them to examine such variables as urbanization and healthy vegetation. The ArcGIS Wayback imagery allows them to interactively examine changes in forest cover, coastal erosion, glacial retreat, and other changes using terabytes of satellite imagery at their fingertips. Students are able to organize their work, perform spatial analysis on their data, visualize, and share results. They can present their own research projects using infographics, dashboards, storymaps, and other tools. Most importantly, students can apply geotechnologies to understand and explain the implications, associations, networks, and interconnections among people, places, and phenomena. Next, we discuss the skills students are gaining while working with these data sets and with GIS and remote sensing tools. Students who use GIS are obviously gaining software and technical skills. But more importantly, they gain skills in communication, analysis, critical thinking, and using data from a wide variety of sources, scales, and formats. They also actively practice and apply spatial thinking to solve problems in locating a store or a service, determine areas for smart city development, find areas that are situated in multiple natural hazards zones, determine which trees or coral reefs are most at risk, and/or determine optimal routes for vehicles, trains, or packages. These skills that we are discussing are in much demand in the workplace—science including the emerging data sciences, but also in business (supply chain management, marketing, risk assessment), engineering, design, mathematics, city planning, transportation, energy, natural resource management, public safety, social work, communication, and in many other fields. And that demand will only increase in the future. We then ask the question, “What can the person watching this video do to promote spatial thinking in their own personal and professional networks?” We answer this by mentioning several ways: Advocate for spatial thinking in your kids’ school, your alma mater college, or a school, community college, or university in your own city. Refer people to the recent article in Directions Magazine–Geography in our Everyday Lives. In this article, Joseph Kerski and Barbaree Duke included a survey that you can fill out about these topics, and you can visualize your own and others’ survey results via an ArcGIS Dashboard.We ask the readers of this essay and the viewers of our three videos: What is your definition of spatial thinking? When, where, and how do you think spatial thinking should be put into practice?
We close the videos and this essay by asking the viewers to leave their comments, thoughts, and questions here and/or in the videos to promote spatial literacy throughout all educational institutions and in all disciplines.
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