GISSA Gauteng - GIS Week

GIS Week 2006

Read about all the GIS week events in the GISSA Gauteng May 2006 newsletter (available in the news section of the GISSA Gauteng website).

GIS Week 2005

The theme for this years GIS week was "GIS awareness in Education". This was chosen because GIS will be included in the school curriculum from next year. GISSA joined the NSIF in their effort to make learners and teachers more aware of what GIS is. Schools were identified by subject advisors and volunteers from the GIS community were asked to visit schools and give presentations.

The following schools were visited: Carlton Jones(Carltonville / Khutsong), Phahama SenSec(Randfontein), Krugersdorp High(Krugersdorp), Dr Vilakazi(Soweto), Silver Oaks(Elrado Park), Amogelang Sen Sec(Soshanguve), Topaz Sen Sec School(Lenasia), Liverpool(Actonville), M.O.M Seboni(Duduza), Tholulwazi(Tsakane), Eureka(Springs) and Lesedi Secondary school.

GIS community members that came to the party were the NSIF, GIMS, MTN, SEFSA and GeoTerraImage.

Close to a 1000 children were exposed to GIS for the first time. In general the presentations were well accepted. Learners as well as teachers were interested and fascinated about what GIS can do. What a world of opportunities they will be exposed to! Geography will never be the same!

GIMS took the things a step further and did a practical project with Azaatville learners. After a few hours of GIS background and software training, the children were left with data and information for their project. They presented the results at the NSIF?s GIS in business seminar on the 13th of May, marking the end of GIS week. And what a good job they did! They were awarded a gift and certificate in acknowledgement of this achievement.

There is still a great demand for information on GIS especially from the teachers. This is something totally new to them and they will need the help from the GIS community to help make this real and exciting to their learners. We would like to encourage all companies to get involved with a school as a source of information and guidance.