GIS is becoming an intergral part of the Geography curriculum and this exercise is designed to help support the introduction of GIS to your students and/or colleagues.

The session is largely paper-based.  Students will work in small teams (up to 6) and be presented with a wide variety of information about Tyneside, the public transport networks and the Metro light rail system.  Students will be asked to assimilate and analyse the information to determine where an extension to the Metro system could and should go.  After each group has identified a route, the workshop leader will walk the students through a GIS demonstration of the decision making process.

By completing the task in a paper-based environment before seeing a GIS working, the students will understand that a GIS is more than a "map on a computer" and appreciate the potential of these systems.

The exercise was first delivered for the York Geogrpahical Association regional Sixth Form conference in 2009 and received the following feedback:

" This was a practical decision-making exercise based on where to site an extension to the Newcastle Metro network followed by a thought provoking look at the enormous variety of Geography related degrees currently available in the UK. Being able to see GIS used by an expert in a context which was meaningful and accessible to the students was fantastic."