Center for Spatial Studies

This report documents the education, research, and outreach activities of the Center for the period March 2013 - March 2016. In addition, it presents a vision for the center based on plans set forth for the next 3 years.

This report documents the education, research, and outreach activities of the Center for the period beginning in July 2010. In addition, it presents a vision for the center based on plans set forth by the incoming (Dec. 2013) Director of the Center, Dr. Werner Kuhn.

TeachSpatial is a small‐grant NSDL Pathways projectl to extend and enhance an existing web portal (http://teachspatial.org) developed and hosted by the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. TeachSpatial was launched in March 2009 with the objectives of promoting the discussion of spatial literacy among researchers and educators and providing access to digital resources that support the integration of spatial thinking into course curricula. Funding from NSF began in September 2010 with the objective to develop the “resources” section of the TeachSpatial website as a managed NSDL Collection, organized according to a concept‐based framework that transcends disciplinary boundaries. The project allows users to discover and navigate through related spatial concepts and provides directed access to relevant National Science Digital Library resources. The intent is to support the integration of spatial thinking into high school and undergraduate courses, curricula, and educational standards for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This repport documents the activities and findings of the TeachSpatial project.

UCSB introduced an interdisciplinary minor in spatial studies in 2011, the first of its kind worldwide. This flyer provides an intellectual rationale for students to consider this minor as a complement to a broad range of disciplinary and career specializations.

TeachSpatial is an NSF-funded small-grant NSDL (National Science Digital Library) Pathways project to extend and enhance an existing web portal  (http://teachspatial.org) by providing guided access to digital resources that support instruction in spatial thinking skills within STEM subject courses. This proposal provides the rationale and evidence in support of the project.

This report summarizes the research, education, and outreach activities of the Center for Spatial Studies since its establishment in July 2007.

This report summarizes discussions among ten university instructors from six disciplines in a symposium hosted by Diana Sinton at the University of Redlands in June 2008. The meeting was developed as a cooperative effort with the UC Santa Barbara Center for Spatial Studies.

The intent of the symposium was to review opportunies and challenges for establishing an undergraduate general course on spatial thinking.

This event provided a foundation for the establishment of a website devoted to instruction about fundamental spatial concepts (see http://teachspatial.org) and to the establishment of academic minors in spatial studies at UC Santa Barbara and the University of Redlands.

This brochure describes the intellectual basis for establishing the Center for Spatial Studies at UCSB. It highlights the role of spatial thinking across all knowledge domains.

This brochure seeks to broaden public understanding for the importance of spatial literacy for solving problems in science and for society.

This brochure documents the interdisciplinary breadth of the spatial perspective for research and teaching. Although this argument focuses on UC Santa Barbara, it could be easily documented for nearly all institutions of highter learning.