​Geospatial for schools

Understanding the value of location and how the use of location information can benefit the world and the people in it needs to start at an early age.

Many organisations are working to help New Zealand school students, teachers and careers advisors understand more about the spatial sciences and the exciting career opportunities available:

Geospatial virtual field trips for schools

Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) sponsors an annual geospatial Virtual Field Trip for schools through the well established LEARNZ programme run by CORE Education. The aim is to raise awareness among school students and teachers of the value of the spatial sciences and related exciting career opportunities. Multi-media curriculum resources from the past geospatial Virtual Field Trips are freely available under Creative Commons licences at the links below:

Feedback from teachers on the field trips

  • “The importance of maps and surveying to the rebuild of CHCH. How the whole of CHCH area was affected, not just the city, New vocabulary words. That science is very important”
  • “It will address the key components of the GIS standard in Yr11 Geo”
  • “Mapping skills were hugely improved. Knowledge and understanding of the situation in Christchurch became real to these Auckland students”
  • “The background notes are superb. The material can be revisited and is great for revision / extension because it's just soooo damn good”

Awards won by the field trips

The LINZ 2014 geospatial virtual field trip for schools was the winner of the People and Community category in the 2014 New Zealand Spatial Excellence Awards.

The 2019 LINZ Geospatial VFT was the most popular in the 23+ years of the LEARNZ Programme history with 10,003 students enrolled from 347 classes.

Field trip experts talk about their careers

Subject matter experts from the LINZ Geospatial Virtual Field Trips say in writing or video what their work involves and why they love their jobs:

GIS in schools programme

Since March 2017, New Zealand schools have free access to Esri’s ArcGIS Online software that lets students and teachers explore and analyse data using maps. 

To request a free account, schools should access:

 www.eagle.co.nz/gis-schools

Eagle Technology, the NZ Esri software distributor, developed free resources with teachers. These resources relate to the NCEA Geography Achievement Standards at Levels 1,2 and 3 that specifically reference use of GIS:

Leaving School magazines

Toitū Te Whenua LINZ with the Geospatial Capability Committee (GCC) has published profiles of GIS graduates in the Leaving School magazine each year.  Fifty-five thousand copies of each Leaving School magazine edition are distributed free to senior students in every secondary school in the country.  

The stories of the GIS graduates help senior school students, teacher and careers advisors become more aware of exciting career opportunities in New Zealand’s geospatial industry and explore related tertiary study options.

The profiles in the Leaving School magazine are also part of the GCC’s and Toitū Te Whenua’s approach to developing people’s geospatial awareness and skills across the school, tertiary and industry sectors.  This supports in particular the Toitū Te Whenua outcome that geographic and property information is used effectively to deliver value for New Zealand.  People with the right awareness, knowledge and skills are needed for this to happen.

Leaving School magazine GIS graduate profiles

Information for School Leavers – Survey and Spatial New Zealand Tātai Whenua

"Spatial and surveying careers open up opportunities to work in exciting and unique areas. You could end up using the latest technology from drones, digital mapping, smart sensors, 3D printing to artificial intelligence. People in the industry design, build, manage and protect everything you see in the world." (RICS.org)

Check out information about:

Spatial and Surveying careers.

Tahatū career information

Explore earth science, geospatial and physics related careers on the Tahatū website:

Tahatū website - Earth science and physics

Inspiring the Future Aotearoa

The Inspiring the Future Aotearoa initiative is organised by the Tertiary Education Commission.  At an Inspiring the Future event, primary and intermediate school students (7-13 years age group) hear from volunteer role models in their communities, learn about different jobs and why people love doing them, as well as their pathway and challenges they faced along the way.  If you are interested in showcasing your job in the geospatial industry to school students then you can find out more about the Inspiring the Future initiative and sign up as a role model.

Inspiring the Future Aotearoa 

GIS Day

Each year, GIS Day provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

Find out about GIS Day

Children’s map competition

Every two years the New Zealand Cartographic Society coordinates a national children’s map competition with winners going forward to the children’s map competition.

New Zealand has been pushing above its weight at recent International competitions having winners at that level with:

  • 2011: Tauranga Boys College (Hayden Livingston)
  • 2015: Te Kauwhata College (Amy Wang)
  • 2017: Tauranga Girls’ College (Rebecca Kneale & Akira McTavish-Huriwai) and Bishop Viard College (Phoebe McClean)
  • 2019: Matakana School (Barnaby Blampied)
  • 2021: Mahurangi College (Barnaby Blampied)
     
Two paintings. One shows two hands holding a Rubick's cube with parts of the globe on each square. The next shows a girl in the World Section of the library, where each book makes up the world map

The World at my Fingertips – "Remains a Puzzle” by Hayden Livingston and “World Section” by Amy Wang

International award-winning drawing “Through a Child’s Eyes” by Rebecca Kneale & Akira McTavish-Huriwai .

“Through a Child’s Eyes” by Rebecca Kneale & Akira McTavish-Huriwai.

International award-winning drawing, with all parts of a world map are marked as 'State of the U.S.A', and Antarctica marked as 'Fake'

“Trump’s World” by Phoebe McLean

image of 2019 kids map competition winner with a turtle crying, and the globe wrapped in plastic

“A Turtle’s Tear: Our Plastic Oceans” by Barnaby Blampied

Check out all the amazing winners from 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021:

 NZ Children’s Map Competition winners.

 National Geographic article about the 2017 International Children’s Map Competition, including NZ winners 

Grow GIS NZ Facebook page

Grow GIS NZ Facebook page share engaging posts on geospatial capability events, courses, people and places:

Grow GIS NZ on Facebook  

Screenshot of the Grow GIS NZ Facebook page

New Zealand Geographic Archive

Every school has unlimited access to every issue of the award-winning New Zealand Geographic ever published - 2000 stories and 10,000 images of New Zealand’s environment and society. The New Zealand Geographic Archive features fantastic local material to support literacy, science, history, geography, natural world studies and more. It’s free for students and teachers through your school network. Visit:

NZGeo stories 

Examples of a New Zealand Geographic Archive article on a tablet, desktop and mobile phone

Sign up to the free email service for teachers and schools. This weekly email contains the latest trending subjects and background reading to news headlines.:

 Register for NZGeo Connect. 

Further information

Any queries about Geospatial for Schools email growgisnz@linz.govt.nz

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