Abstract
Louisiana Coastal Education: Mapping for our Future
Track: Teaching with GIS Across the Curriculum
Authors: Diane Maygarden, Heather Egger
The University of New Orleans Coastal Education Program (UNO-CEP) works with students and teachers to incorporate coastal science into the pre-college curriculum. Mapping, GIS and Remote Sensing have been an important component and a recent project funded by Louisiana Sea Grant combined project-based learning and remote sensing research to assess marsh health and habitat change. High School students obtained the spectral signature and other biophysical parameters of vegetation within Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge and assessed changes over time, using the following tools: ArcPad; ArcMap; Erdas Imagine, GPS capable hand-held computers; spectroradiometer; chlorophyll meter; and DOQQ and Landsat TM 4-5 imagery and online GIS tools. Six groups of students addressed a variety of questions about marsh health, including recovery from Hurricane Katrina and seasonal changes. These challenging research projects gave the students (and teachers) greater understanding of technology applications for real-world environmental science and increased their technology skill levels.