Beyond "Place Matters": Making Spatial Analysis Accessible with Dashboard-Driven Geography
Data to accompany this article is available on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30067117
Abstract
Teaching and learning about geographic concepts is most impactful when students can connect spatial thinking directly to real-world problems. Nevertheless, geography remains acknowledged but underutilized in many social science, public health, and policy studies classrooms. Students often hear that “place matters” despite having meaningful opportunities to investigate how and why it matters. Too often, this gap exists because instructors face barriers in adopting full-scale Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, whether due to licensing costs, technical requirements, or time constraints. . .
This article was published Open Access through the CCU Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund. The article was first published in the journal The Geography Teacher: https://doi.org/10.1080/19338341.2026.2614084