GIS Konsult, a company that specializes in Geographic Information System (GIS) training and consulting, with the help of Environmental Research Systems institute (ESRI) based in the United States, a foremost manufacturer of GIS software globally, has embarked on a nationwide project that seeks to revive the ailing science subject of Geography in the nation’s secondary schools.
ESRI used GIS software in some high schools in the US to help students understand Geography better and empower them to solve environmental problems.
The desire by David Afolayan, the GIS Konsult boss, to replicate the project in Nigeria formed the genesis of the Geography Green Schools Project.
According to him, ESRI made a donation of software about N3 billion to Nigerian schools under the project.
The project uses what Afolayan calls ‘geomentors’ who are users of geography and geography technology to adopt secondary schools and mentor the students and teachers therein.
At each school chosen for the project, he stated that “we present ESRI’s software donation to the schools during the launch. We also display the capability of ESRI’s ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Desktop to the students and teachers. The Geography teacher in each school is then trained to use ArcGIS resources with Geography Curriculum content. Basically, we have integrated the ESRI technology with our local Nigerian Geography Curriculum content and teachers are encouraged to utilize this in their class lessons and activities. We had the first launch in St Louis Girls Grammar School, Ibadan, on November 5, 2015.
“The project is meant to reach all the regions of the country over time. However, the south-west of Nigeria is hosting the pilot phase currently. About 19 schools in Ibadan have been reached so far, including Loyola College, Government College, Apata, St Louis Grammar School, Mokola and others.”
Recently, the GIS Konsult team visited St Anne’s Girls Schools, Molete, Ibadan. The students were worked through the presentation and other activities as done in other schools, as outlined by Afolayan.
“The attitude of students to academics is low, and it is affecting geography. Geography is a subject that requires teaching aids like maps and the like. We don’t have such facilities nowadays and teachers have to improvise! These are some of the challenges facing the students and study of Geography,” said the Head of Department, Social Sciences at St Anne’s Girls School, Molete, Ibadan, Rev Canon Femi Oyewusi, adding that the project was a welcome development.
“Geography is a subject that I love and it should be taught with a lot of teaching aids,” a Geography teacher at St. Anne’s Girls School, Modinat Adekunle, said. Adekunle said her job would become a lot easier thereby.
Afolayan is confident of the global impact of this project in the years to come. “We are putting in the hands of students tools that will help them see solutions to the world’s problems,” Afolayan added, making reference to United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals for the next 15 years which he said have a geography component.
Adekunle sees a new dawn for geography in the light of this project. “Geography seems to be going the way of History as a subject that is not important. This initiative will help restore Geography as a key subject that all Science and Commercial students should offer,” she concluded.
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