ABSTRACT
Interest in the teaching of GIS in school education in the UK has also progressed through the work of the Information and Education (I&E) Committee of the Association for Geographic Information. Membership of this committee included a number of individuals who were either involved directly with school education, e.g. Diana Freeman, An Educational Geographic Information System (AEGIS), or who had a strong interest in school education (e.g. David R. Green, David J. Maguire, Roy Newell). A publication by Freeman (1993) entitled ‘GIS in Schools’ was published by the AGI and is available for free. Over the years members of the AGI I&E Committee have continued to maintain strong links with the Geographical Association, and in particular have ensured that the AGI has a presence at its annual conference. Additionally, individuals such as Professor David Rhind (ex-Director General and Chief Executive of the Ordnance Survey (OS)) have continued to play a part in the promotion of links between the OS, the GA and the AGI (Rhind, 1993a, 1993b). It is likely that the work of the AGI, in embracing a ‘broad church’, will continue to reach out to the educational community at large. In the context of schools, as Newell (1997) notes, however, ‘there is still much to be done as general awareness of GIS ... on the whole is still generally lacking’ (p. 12). More recent details concerning the activities of the AGI in school education can be found in AGI (1997).
