Wildgoose Supports World GIS Day with School Outreach

Wildgoose, the UK’s leading supplier of geography resources, has completed a school outreach programme in support of World GIS Day. An international day of celebration, GIS Day is designed to encourage professional users and those involved in education to engage and enthuse school, community and business groups about geography. The Wildgoose team visited Woodstone Community Primary School located just a few miles from their Leicestershire base, and led a class of twenty-four, six and seven year olds, in three geography themed hands-on teaching activities.

The Wildgoose team led the class in three diverse geography themed activities: making and testing a windsock, creating a globe and comparing world maps, and discovering and mapping local amenities. Mr Patrick Mullins, Head Teacher of Woodstone Community Primary commented, “By engaging the children with real world examples and applications, and of course natural enthusiasm, Wildgoose has helped encourage a life-long interest in geography.”

“It is estimated that there are more than 2 million GIS users worldwide yet most people have never heard of this increasingly important technology,” said Kathryn Lucas Education Business Manager “With every day examples such as satellite navigation in cars, positioning technology in mobile phones and a wealth of online mapping sites such as Google Earth, it is important that we share our knowledge and enthusiasm and support events such as GIS Day.”

Wildgoose already has strong links with Woodstone School. They recently supported a community tree-planting project by supplying a Global Positioning System (GPS) to map the exact location of each tree and have previously supplied a wide range of educational products including site-specific aerial photography for use in the classroom.

More than 80 countries participated in this year’s international GIS Day, holding local events such as corporate open houses, hands-on workshops, community exhibitions, school assemblies and much more. The event aims to showcase real world applications of geographic information systems (GIS) and educate more than 3,000,000 children worldwide. In the US GIS Day is part of the National Geographic Society’s Geography Action Plan, a year long initiative encompassing key educational achievements such as GIS Day and Geography Awareness Week.

Wildgoose has been providing resources for education for over 11 years and has grown into one of the UK’s leading publishers of geographical teaching aids. Wildgoose is a member of the British Educational Suppliers Association and a registered content provider for the Curriculum Online scheme.

For further information, or to request a catalogue, please call Wildgoose on 01530 518568.

Please fax colour separation requests to Robert Peel fax no. 01666 824668
Reader enquiries to Kathryn Lucas on 01530 518568