Abstract
School Campus Metabolism: Ecological Restoration & Gardens with GeoDesign
Track: Teaching with GIS Across the Curriculum
Authors: Arlene Hopkins, Margot Griswold
We will present an environmental science based mapping approach that K-12 students and teachers can use to study, model, plan, design and manage their campus site as part of the curriculum.
Based on science-based methods, develop simple models of their campus eco-function, or metabolism. Students gather data about their site, prepare transparent overlays, use GIS software, and build-up a model of theircampus as a living place. The students assess then intervene in thelife of their site. In a sense, studentsare engaged in applied human ecology.
Examples of existing school campuses will include an ecological restoration project at an urban elementary school focusing on the soil, surface hydrology, plants, birds and insects.
This presentation is a first step toward modeling selected metabolicfunctions within the environmental systems of the campus site. A larger goal is to localize environmental education at the school site and within the community.