Investigation of earth and how its system works Broad range of topics related to earth and its landscape

Mountain building Structure of earth Erosion of continents Location of natural resources Volcanoes, paleoclimate and evolution

Space-age science
Remote sensing data High performance computing and State of the art visualization.

 Free Software
can be used, studied, modified, copied and redistributed either without any restriction or with restriction allowed by the manufacture and generally available without any charge (Subramanyam and Xia, 2008).

Open Source Software (OSS)

that is available in source code under a software license that permits the users to study, modify, improve and distribute to other users (Hauge et al., 2010)

 Expansive
low resource settings i.e. low budget schools particularly such schools in the developing countries

Examples
ENVI, Autodesk, Intergraph, ArcGIS and ERDAS IMAGINE

 Its free!
To use and distribute Simple installation No licensing costs

It works
Fits common spatial data standards Broad functionality

Customizable Often easier to learn than proprietary packages.

Geoscience teaching & learning mainly involves spatial data (both raster and vector) management, analysis, visualisation and mapping. This is what the propriety software such as ArcGIS and Erdas Imagine are meant for. Free and open source software also provides the same functionalities.

Categories of available free & pen source RS and GIS Tools Desktop RS and GIS software Spatial data management systems (SDBMS) Spatial data viewers Virtual browsers Mapping applications

Integrated raster and vector design Import and export of widely used data formats Comprehensive set of image processing tools Orthophoto, image georeferencing, transformation and mosaicing Advanced modeling and spatial data analysis 3D visualization with interactive editing for optimal view findings Rich projection and coordinate system library Geo-statisitical analyses, Spatial multiple criteria evaluation

httP://tinyurl.com/freeGISsoft

May not support teaching and learning with all the finesse of large, expansive system. However, can get a job done Worth examining as an alternative to buying or using complex software and costly data.
Offer a free access to test the range of capabilities and make sure that it is compatible with your teaching and learning requirements.