Hoerskool Oosterlig comes out tops in City's first Geography competition

17 November 2017

 

Hoërskool Oosterlig was today (Friday 17 November) announced as winners of the City of Johannesburg’s first online Geography competition.

 

Referred to as the MAPLETICS Geography Challenge, the competition forms part of efforts by the Corporate Geo-Informatics (CGIS) Directorate in the Department of Development Planning to expose school children to Geo-Informatics Systems (GIS), and encourage them to sharpen their skills in the field.

As part of their prize, learners from Oosterlig will be given GIS demonstrations at their school early in the 2018 academic year. Details of this will be confirmed in due course.

Developed into a mobile app in collaboration with geospatial industry software provider, Esri South Africa, the MAPLETICS Geography Challenge is the first of its kind online competition aimed at making learning Geography fun.

Grade 10 – 12 learners and teachers were able to download the MAPLETICS app for free on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile smartphones. Sixty-seven learners from 10 high schools participated in the month-long competition between 1 October and 3 November 2017.

The CGIS team and developers at Esri South Africa sat together to formulate 130 questions over four levels, based on the Grade 10 – 12 Geography curriculum, Johannesburg tourism and landmarks, visual maps, as well as basic general knowledge. Participants were required to answer five random questions per level. Tokens were awarded for five correct answers, while bonus points were accumulated when questions are answered in the quickest time. 
The learners of Hoërskool Oosterlig, also known as team BeterAsBeterAsCasey, won the competition with 1220 points.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development Planning, Cllr Funzela Ngobeni, congratulated the winners and thanked all schools for taking part in the MAPLETICS Geography Challenge.
“Competitions such as these contribute to teaching young people how geography can be used in the real world through Geo-Informatics and maps. The benefits of Geo-Informatics for local government include improved decision making, citizen engagement and service delivery, which are priorities for this administration,” MMC Ngobeni said.