Teaching and Tragedy: Lessons from a Population and GIS workshop in Cambodia

For the second part of the workshop we had two goals: (1) to teach the participants how to use ArcView, a popular desktop GIS, and (2) to incorporate demographic data from the first part of the workshop into a geospatial database (including digital boundary files of provinces and districts for Cambodia), map the results, and perform some rudimentary spatial analysis. Since not all participants were geography faculty, we spent half a day introducing the principles and concepts of a GIS. [...]we had to devote class time to finishing the assignment rather than introducing new material. Many Cambodians have rudimentary skills in English, which has become the second language in Cambodia. Since much of the research literature is in English, students would benefit in many ways from improving their English language proficiency. The Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport records only those Cambodians who study abroad with scholarships. [...]both Australia and the United States report many more Cambodians studying in their respective countries than reported by the Cambodian ministry. 8.