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The application of geographic information systems in schools around the world: a retrospective analysis

The article is devoted to the problem of incorporation geographic information systems (GIS) in world school practice. The authors single out the stages of GIS application in school geographical education based on the retrospective analysis of the scientific literature. The first stage (late 70s - early 90s of the 20th century) is the beginning of the first educational GIS programs and partnership agreements between schools and universities. The second stage (mid 90s of the 20th century - the beginning of the 21st century) comprises the distribution of GIS-educational programs in European and Australian schools with the involvement of leading developers of GIS-packages (ESRI, Intergraph, MapInfo Corp., etc.). The third stage (2005-2012) marks the spread of the GIS school education in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America; on the fourth stage (from 2012 to the present) geographic information systems emerge in school curricula in most countries. The haracteristics of the GIS-technologies development stages are given considering the GIS didactic possibilities for the study of school geography, as well as highlighting their advantages and disadvantages.