Teaching by Doing: PPGIS and Classroom-Based Service Learning‪.‬

INTRODUCTION GIS is much more than making static maps or representing complex data in simple map form; it is also a tool that can facilitate bottom-up participatory decision making. Many organizations, mainly nonprofit and advocacy groups, have begun to utilize GIS in this way, but more mainstream GIS users, such as municipal governments, continue to view GIS in the same top-down data synthesis and presentation model of the past. Part of this disconnect in uses can be traced to the types of GIS education that most students receive that emphasize technical skills over the context within which those skills can be applied. Public participation and GIS (PPGIS) represents much more than a set of technical skills; it represents a suite of concepts that incorporates both the technical use of GIS and the larger contextual elements of participation, policy making, and social change. For these ideas to be successfully implemented in the workplace by knowledgeable practitioners who realize the potential of participatory decision making, this knowledge should be cultivated in students.