COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
FundaLula Sponsorship
Esri South Africa Promotes Spatial Literacy in the Classroom
Due to educational and technological challenges, South African teachers find it difficult to effectively teach learners about Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Students need to develop these spatial skills, an increasingly important skillset in our location-aware and technologically driven world. Recognising the difficulty, Esri South Africa designed and developed the FundaLula programme to help teachers develop confidence in their GIS teaching skills and increase spatial literacy in the classroom.
Recently, Esri South Africa sponsored the FundaLula programme to ten schools in South Africa and included teacher training. The training assisted teachers with mastering key geography and mapwork skills, leading to a better understanding of GIS and spatial solutions. FundaLula is a spatial literacy learning tool and can be used to motivate students to pursue a career in geospatial sciences and increase their awareness of opportunities within their communities!
About FundaLula
FundaLula is a computer-based program specifically designed to aid in the teaching of Geography, Mapwork and GIS as per the CAPS curriculum for Grades 10 – 12. It covers five main learning areas: Basic Mapwork, Topographical and Orthophoto Maps, Map Interpretation, GIS, and Remote Sensing. The FundaLula application provides classroom resources for teachers and learners. These include homework activities, videos, GIS activities, digital maps, informative PowerPoint slides, documents and images. FundaLula provides exposure to various geography related careers and gives students a visual understanding of how geographic knowledge and technology work together. It allows students to visually integrate their knowledge of mapwork in an interactive computer applied environment. The program is easy to use, no prior computer skills are required, and no internet connection is needed.
For more information contact Verosha Naidoo – Community Programme Lead