Abstract
One of the most common teaching days at FSC Pembrokeshire is ecological “succession”. Over the past year we have been using ArcGIS online to map our sample sites and to analyse the trends and patterns that we find in our biotic data. Currently within FSC, the focus has been to incorporate geographical information systems (GIS) in to geography courses as there is a natural specification link. However, GIS is central to many aspects of ecological research, which tend to have a spatial component to the data. This can range from the distribution of sampling sites and habitat types to capturing locations and movements of individual animals (MacLeod, 2013). Just as in geography, allowing our biology students to engage with this technology will help them experience contemporary techniques as used by professional ecologists. This short article discusses two approaches to developing our use of GIS in ecology fieldwork and data analysis as well as highlighting some of the lessons we learnt along the way.