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Susan Aliphat: A GIS Champion from Nova Scotia

GIS Champions are educators who use spatial technologies in their teaching and foster inquiry and critical thinking in their students.

It’s always exciting to meet educators who are using GIS in their teaching because they’re usually people who understand that it’s a valuable tool students can use outside the classroom, too. One such teacher is Susan Aliphat from Park View Education Centre in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. She's been teaching Geography, Geomatics and Canadian History with GIS for at least 10 years at a high school level and she believes the technology is important because of its wide applicability to many post-secondary and career opportunities.

Susan’s students collect data using GPS units in the field and when they return to the classroom, they can analyze the data and create maps in ArcGIS for Desktop. The biggest benefit she sees with her students using GIS is when they experience that eureka moment that allows them to make connections in their data that cannot be made with a spreadsheet. Thank you Susan for inspiring your students with spatial technologies and for giving them skills they can use beyond high school.

We have been promoting GIS champions for over five years now in a section called GIS in the Classroom in the Education Spotlight e-newsletter.  You can read more about our GIS champions here.

About the Author

Angela Alexander is a K-12 Education Specialist in the Esri Canada Education and Research group. She has over 15 years of experience working with educators across Canada. Angela focuses on producing geographic information system (GIS) and curriculum-specific resources, and conducting and creating custom workshops for educators. She manages the GIS Ambassador Program and is the Technical Chair for the annual Skills Ontario GIS competition. Angela also writes monthly posts for the Esri Canada Education and Research blog, highlighting K-12 educators and partners, new ArcGIS resources and GIS-related events.

Profile Photo of Angela Alexander