Strengthening Social Geography Literacy through Geospatial Technology-Based Learning for High School Students

Abstract

High school geography education should help students understand social changes like population growth, urban sprawl, and unequal access to public facilities. Yet most classrooms still rely on lectures, so students memorize terms without learning spatial connections. Geospatial tools like GIS and digital maps offer a way to change that by letting students visualize data from their own neighborhoods. Our community service program addressed this gap through a hands-on workshop designed to improve social geography literacy among senior high school students. The primary goal was to see whether direct practice with simple mapping applications could sharpen spatial thinking and help relate social issues to geographic patterns. We carried out the workshop over two days with 35 students from a public high school. The methods combined interactive sessions with hands on practice using Google Maps and QGIS. Each group analyzed land use changes and mapped local facilities like health clinics and parks. We measured outcomes through pre-test and post-test scores on conceptual knowledge and map reading skills. The results showed clear improvement. The average test score rose from 62.4 to 84.7, and all students completed their mapping tasks successfully. During discussions, they noticed patterns they had overlooked before, such as how poorer areas had fewer public services. No major issues occurred, aside from minor software glitches quickly resolved. This workshop demonstrated that integrating geospatial practice into geography lessons is both feasible and impactful. More importantly, it showed that when students become active explorers of their own environment, their engagement deepens in ways traditional teaching rarely achieves.