Teaching File

The application of UK web-based GIS in geography teaching

Peter OConnor raises teacher awareness of the developments in web-based GIS in the UK, in particular focusing on webbased GIS resources that provide students with greater opportunities to analyse and examine critically the nature of spatial data.
crucial component of GIS is missing, namely attribute data (see Figure 1). Integrating learning opportunities that allow an understanding of geographical processes and GIS technical knowledge to be developed in parallel provide a context in which the ability to think spatially is maximised. Another limitation of virtual globes and the web GIS sites listed above is that they are American based. As a result, some of the best features of these resources are only available for placespecific investigations in America. Additionally, the mapping layers provided are obviously not produced by the Ordnance Survey (OS) UK, limiting opportunities to make connections to those parts of the National Curriculum and exam specifications which require OS data.

The aim of this article is to raise teacher awareness of the developments in web-based GIS in the UK. In particular, this article will focus on web-based GIS resources that provide students with greater opportunities to analyse and examine critically the nature of spatial data. UK data sets will be examined at the national, regional and local scales.

Web-based GIS in the UK

There have been many advances in the availability of web-based GIS in the UK since the year 2000. The stimulus for these developments related to the governments publication in 1999 of a White Paper called Modernising Government. The paper stated that all government services should be electronically available by 2008. The delivery of GIS over the internet was seen as an important component of meeting this target (Beaumont et al., 2005). The benefit of this initiative to schools is that there is now a wealth of government data available via webbased GIS at a range of scales for geographical investigation. 1. Local Authority web-based GIS As a response to the 1999 White Paper, many local authorities are now providing access to local area data over the internet. Much of this data is relevant to the teaching and learning of geography and provides significant opportunities for individual pupil

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Introduction
There have been significant and rapid advances in the availability of webbased GIS in schools over the last few years. The development of GIS-based resources and virtual globes like Google Earth (http://earth.google.com), Windows Local Live (http://local.live.com) and NASAs World Wind (http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov) have provided schools with detailed mapping and near-global coverage of satellite imagery and aerial photography for free. While these resources provide excellent visual representations of the places we study in schools, they are limited in their scope as there is not much opportunity to process spatial data, thus not maximising the time in lessons given to the skills of GIS use. While packages like Google Earth offer a range of opportunities in the classroom for complex geographical enquiry, they do little to help students understanding of the technological aspects of GIS. By not allowing any time in the classroom to develop students understanding of the skills of GIS, we are restricting the potential of our students to think spatially. In this way, GIS resources like Google Earth do not give students the opportunity to think about the quality and nature of the spatial data that underpins their thinking about the places they are investigating. The opportunities for critical spatial thinking are limited with packages like Google Earth because a

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Figure 1: A map of population density for a small area of Western Europe generated using a commercial GIS software package. Note that the data used to produce this map comes from the attributes table. An attribute can therefore be any type of data that describes the nature of a place. In GIS there is always a link maintained between the map and the attribute data. In this example only the data highlighted blue in the table is displayed on the map. However, GIS offers the user the potential to display other attributes that are held in the database table. The main limitation of packages like Google Earth is that they come with limited attribute data and the pupil has no choice in how and what data should be displayed. Source: OConnor (2008).

Local Authority service name Barnet County Council

Website address

Types of service and data provided

www.barnet.gov.uk/onlineservices/online-servicesmaps.htm http://www.bucksonline.gov.uk /portal/bucksmaps/index.jsp

Offers free GIS web-based service for local schools demographics, environmental mapping and local services.

Buckinghamshire Accessible Services Partnership (BASP)

Online access to community facilities, planning and building control information. Facility to plot circles around areas of interest and request email of details of current planning applications. Facility to register for notification of future planning applications in selected areas. Facility to locate conservation areas, preservation areas and public rights of way. Facility to report problems requiring council attention. Interactive map-based application allowing users to navigate by postcode or place name to locate information on parks, libraries, schools, residential homes, youth centres and recycling centres. Provides simple access via a map-based interface to details about councillors, tourist attractions and recycling centres. Interactive map providing access to community information, including libraries, approved marriage venues and register offices. A mapping website covering the county and all districts. Providing access to information including councillors, car parking, leisure facilities, schools and police. See Figures 3 and 4.

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Cheshire County Council

http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/ cheshirecc.interactivemapping. web.internet/Default.aspx www.maps-direct.co.uk/ mapsdirect http://mapping.cornwall. gov.uk derbyshiremaps.derbyshire. gov.uk

Chichester District Council Cornwall County Council Derbyshire Partnership

Durham County Council

www.durham.gov.uk/ durhamcc/usp.nsf (click on maps) www.eastofenglandobservatory .org.uk/mapping.asp

East of England Data Observatory

This site provides an information gateway to the East of England Region. It is for people and organisations interested in discovering more about the region and its social, economic and environmental development. An extensive mapping site providing details of council services, entertainment, education, health, housing, environment and many other attributes. User access to interactive statistical maps of Leeds area. Data on crime, health and census statistics. User flexibility to select area of interest. Numerous map and distance-based applications including Property lookup (commercial lettings and sales), moving home to Brent and getting around Brent.

Islington

http://www.islington.gov.uk/ Transport/Maps/1439.asp

Leeds statistics

http://statistics.leeds.gov.uk

London Borough of Brent

www.brent.gov.uk (to view mapping applications, click on Maps on the main menu and follow instructions)

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investigation and the development of teacher-led exercises. Figure 2 details a list of Local Authorities currently providing access to data resources via web-based GIS. Such resources provide students not only with opportunities to utilise the functionality of a GIS but also with current examples of how GIS is being used by organisations to tackle real world problems. While a review of all these sites is beyond the scope of this article the potential of some of these sites for enhancing geography teaching is explored below.

Durham County Council GIS The Durham County Council GIS (Figure 3) provides free access to one of the most extensive range of Ordnance Survey mapping products available over the internet. In particular, the site provides regional coverage of the Ordnance Surveys premium mapping product Master Map. So if you want to provide your students with access to the latest mapping techniques from the OS this GIS site provides an ideal introduction. The Durham GIS

allows you to interact with both modern and historical maps of the county and the immediate surrounding areas. It is possible to pinpoint features on the map or search for features which are near to a particular postcode, town or street (Figure 4 see page 23). The site includes a facility for mapping and selecting a comprehensive list of services that exist in the region, providing an insight into spatial patterns of service provision.

Local Authority service name Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside (MAGIC) Office of National Statistics

Website address

Types of service and data provided

http://www.magic.gov.uk/

See Figure 7.

www.statistics.gov.uk/census2 001/censusmaps/index.html

Provides access to the complete 2001 census dataset and 2005 deprivation data for the UK at a range of different geographical scales. PHASE aims to promote and facilitate the sharing of health, socioeconomic and other public health related data. See Figures and 4.

PHASE developed by the West Midlands Public Health Observatory Surrey Alert

http://phase.esriuk.com

www.surreyalert.info

Online information on major incidents and emergencies, e.g. flooding, fuel availability, progress of foot and mouth disease. Interactive mapping applications include flood extent and level monitoring. Provides access to a range of map-based information for a prominent area of London. Serves an important business and tourist community requiring easy online access to services. Includes Master Map Data. Public rights of way.

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Westminster City Council

www3.westminster.gov.uk/ maps

West Sussex County Council

http://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ ccm/navigation/leisure-andtourism/publicrights-of-way www.maps-direct.co.uk

Wiltshire and Swindon Pathfinder GIS

Online facility to locate recycling sites, schools and colleges, residential centres, nursing and residential homes, leisure centres and libraries, youth centres, electoral districts, wards and districts boundaries. Facility to initiate service requests. Access to frequently asked questions, e.g. identifying local councillors, identifying service levels and availability. Interactive map-based applications including tourism, school locations, find your councillors, streetlight fault reporting, election results and public rights of way. Visualisation of relationships between pooled data. Includes 2001 Census data.

Worcestershire County Council

www.worcestershire.whub.org. uk/ home/wcc-gis.htm

Worcestershire County Council Joined Up Information System (JUIS)

http://worcestershire.whub. org.uk/home/wcc-pep-riindex-census-whereilive-juis

Figure 2: Examples of Local Authority, regional and national services provided by internet GIS. Source: Adapted from Beaumont et al., 2005 and OConnor, 2008.

PHASE West Midlands Public Health Observatory PHASE aims to promote and facilitate the sharing of health, socio-economic and other related data for the West Midlands area. PHASE utilises GIS technologies to enable regional statistics at a choice of geographical scales to be presented in the form of thematic maps (see Figure 5). Students can map a series of indicators that can be used to support the teaching of a range of topics at GCSE and A level. The website provides an excellent case study for showing stu-

dents how GIS is being applied to tackle complex social, health and economic problems. The site is essentially sharing data between different branches of local government to tackle health issues in the region. By utilising the site students not only get to access a GIS technology but also get to investigate a contemporary issue in geography, namely the geography of health. Figure 6 (see page 24) describes some of the major datasets associated with the PHASE GIS and makes some basic suggestions as to how these

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themes could be explored in the classroom. The key advantage of this site as a teaching resource is that it provides students with a range of options as to what data to display and how that information is to be represented. As a result, students have to make decisions at each stage about what spatial data they want to select and how it should be displayed. This has the potential to challenge students to evaluate different data and also to foster greater ownership of the maps they finally produce through the use of this site.

2. National agency web-based GIS MAGIC MAGIC (Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside) is the first web-based interactive map to bring together information from the eight key organisations in the UK responsible for rural policy-making and management. Although it has been designed to meet the needs of the partner organisations, the facility is available to anyone over the internet. As a result the primary datasets collected by these organisations are now available to schools. The MAGIC partners are:

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DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) Countryside Agency Landscape, Access and Recreation English Heritage English Nature Environment Agency Forestry Commission ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) RDS (Rural Development Service).

Figure 3: An example of the Durham County Council GIS website with OS aerial photography and ATM cash points displayed. Source: www.durham.gov.uk/durhamcc/usp.nsf/?Open

The availability of this data via a webbased GIS offers schools an extensive insight into how our landscapes are being managed by government organisations. The datasets available offer significant opportunities to look at environmental management and conflicts in the UK. They also provide a backdrop to developing students knowledge of their local areas beyond the normal mapping materials previously available to schools. There are eight major datasets available, including:
Administrative areas Coastal and marine resource atlas Habitat inventories Joint character areas Land classifications Rural designations statutory Rural designations other Rural land-based schemes.

Figure 5: An example of the PHASE web-based GIS window. In this example a map has been produced indicating the number of people aged 18-24 in employment at ward level. Source: http://phase.esriuk.com

Figure 7: An example of the MAGIC GIS browser. The dataset displayed is from the Coastal and marine resource atlas. Source: www.magic.gov.uk

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One of the most impressive resources on the site is the Coastal and marine resource atlas, which provides geomorphological mapping for the entire UK coastline (Figure 7). The site is flexible in how students can access and map the available datasets. This is an extremely useful resource for exploring rural issues and management strategies with students.

Mapping Layers OS 1:50,000 OS 1:25,000 OS 1:10,000 OS Master Map Data OS Historical Mapping Series Aerial Photography

Datasets Airports ATM cash machines Banks and building societies Barbers and hairdressing salons Beauty salons Bus and coach stations Business sites Cafs Camping and caravan sites Car parks Careers offices Chemists/pharmacies Chiropodists Cinemas Civil marriage venues Clothing and accessory shops Constituencies Council-owned land Day care units Dentists DIY/home improvement stores Doctors Durham Record (heritage-related images) Estate agents/property services Farmers markets Fast food and takeaways Guest houses Hospitals Hostels/hotels Household waste and recycling sites Housing associations Job centres Kennels and catteries Leisure centres Libraries Mental health day care MPs New bridge schemes Newsagents Night clubs Nursery schools Opticians/optometrists Parishes Petrol stations Places of worship Playgrounds Post offices Primary/junior schools Public recycling sites Public telephones Public toilets Pubs, bars and inns Registrars marriage offices Residential accommodation Restaurants Roadworks (being carried out by utility companies) Scrap yards Secondary schools Sixth form colleges Social care and health offices Social clubs Solicitors Special schools Supermarkets, bakers, butchers, and grocers Train stations Travel agents Universities and colleges Vehicle repair/servicing Veterinarians Welfare rights surgeries

Teaching ideas This site is ideal for exploring topics associated with service provision. The spatial extent of the area covered by the site provides excellent case study material for looking at service provision within a settlement hierarchy. Issues surrounding rural service decline can be examined using an extensive range of indicator variables. The datasets and the mapping layers provided are ideal for examining the urban-rural fringe. The range of mapping layers provided allows an exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of different mapping media. The different scale of mapping available can provide useful in teaching basic map-reading skills.

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Figure 4: Data associated with the Durham County Council GIS site and possible teaching ideas.

Boundary geography Ward Primary Care Trust Local Authority Strategic Health Authority

Data sets provided Employment Young people in employment Unemployed claiming benefits Working age in employment Working age unemployed Young people in education Young people in employment or education Education and schools 16-74 No qualifications KS2-4+ English KS2-4+ Maths KS3-5+ English KS3-5+ Maths KS4-5 GCSE A*-C KS4-5 GCSE A*-G KS4 No GCSE Inequality Council tax benefit recipients Neoplasms Breast cancer Lung cancer Colo-rectal cancer Prostate cancer Cancer of the cervix Skin cancer All cancers Circulatory Coronary heart disease Stroke and TIA All circulatory disease Respiratory Chronic airways disease All respiratory disease Injury and poisoning Suicide Accidental poisoning Alcohol-related Drug-related Accidents All road traffic casualties (RTCs) Deaths or serious RTCs Pedestrian casualties Health status Life expectancy Services Population-based and preventative screening Hospital episodes for breast cancer Number of health professionals Number of doctors Number of GP practices Accident and emergency Over 65s receiving flu vaccination Patients to A&E staying longer than three days Patients treated by A&E in under four hours General and acute: other Patients waiting longer than three months Patients waiting longer than six months Mental health Hospital episodes for neuroses Hospital episodes for schizophrenia

Possible teaching ideas Data could be used to explore the social and economic structure of the region, examining variations between rural and urban areas, testing the accuracy and limitations of models of urban structure, examining the relationships between the physical nature of the region and the areas social and economic patterns. Exploring relationships between indicators, examining the relationships between levels of wealth, education and health focusing on student preconceptions and misconceptions. Using data as a resource to discuss fieldwork methodology, assessing critically with students the appropriateness of different indicator variables for answering a range of geographical questions. Exploring data presentation techniques using the different GIS display options, assessing critically map design and layout. Using as a case study to examine how organisations apply GIS to tackle real-world problems. Exploring methods of GIS data presentation.

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Figure 6: PHASE GIS content for the West Midlands Region and possible links to classroom teaching.

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Office of National Statistics The Office of National Statistics provides three different web-based GIS browsers that are useful to schools (see Figures 8, 9 and 10). All give access to datasets and maps that can be downloaded to extend the types of spatial analysis students can conduct. Such data can be used to augment enquirybased learning and extend the opportunities to think and understand spatially. Figure 11 lists a small selection of the spatial datasets available for analysis.

Conclusion
Figure 8: Office of National Statistics 2001 Area Classification for Wards. Source: www.statistics.gov.uk/about/methodology_by_theme/area_classification/wards/gor.asp

The web-based GIS sites discussed above offer intellectually challenging and demanding learning opportunities for students. Importantly, they not only provide a context for geographical enquiry but provide students with a chance to think critically about the nature of spatial data. This is possible because many of the sites listed in Figure 2 require students to think about what types of spatial data they want to display. In making these decisions students are also required to think about how to display their spatial data, thus extending the depth of their knowledge of geography and of the technology of GIS.

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Figure 9: Census 2001 Interactive Map. Source: www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/censusmaps/index.html

Population density People aged 75 and over Population change 1991-2001 Households without car or van One person households Non-white ethnic groups People born outside the UK Households lacking amenities People with a limiting long-term illness People with general health not good People who provide unpaid care People aged 16-74 unemployed Average hours worked People employed in industry People 16-74 taking public transport to work People 16-74 with qualifications at Level 2+

Figure 11: Key indicators provided by the Office of National Statistics from the 2001 Census.
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Figure 10: The Neighbourhood Statistics site of the Office of National Statistics. This is the gateway to the 2001 Census data at Local Authority, Ward, New Deal for Communities and Super Output Area geographical scales. Source: http://neighbourhood.statistics. gov.uk/dissemination/

References
Beaumont, P., Langley, P.A. and Maguire, D.J. (2005) Geographic information portals a UK perspective, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 29, pp. 4969. OConnor, P. (2008). GIS for A-Level Geography. Sheffield: Geographical Association.

Peter OConnor is Head of Geography at Bishops Stortford College (email peter.oconnor@bishopsstortfordcollege.org).