Kids get fired up over GIS

Americorps volunteer Jannis Jocius helps some Moscow 6th graders figure out a GIS program.

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Story Published: Mar 8, 2007 at 9:53 AM PST

Story Updated: Mar 8, 2007 at 9:53 AM PST

By Nate Kuester

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MOSCOW - A University of Idaho classroom was filled Wednesday with over 40 kids from Russell Elementary School.

Several Americorps volunteers helped teach the eager 6th graders about practical applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). And the kids were eating it up.

“They're applying GIS in kind of a real world situation,” said volunteer Jannis Jocius. “They've done some classroom work and have done layering and things, but they kind of wanted to feel what it is to be on a university campus and how it actually applies to the real world."

Jocius said there is a lot of information made available to the students by learning how to use GIS.

"There are actually a lot of maps in this classroom and it shows what sort of layers you could put on,” she said. “If you want to know the population of your town, plus how much vegetation there is, maybe the effects of pollutants in the water, it's kind of just layering all of that into a visual image that kind of puts together what problems you want to assess...or rangeland qualities. It runs the gambit."

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