How can GIS resources and technology have their greatest impact in urban educational settings? How can urban students use GIS to understand their community, be involved in improving it, and have an influence on the decisions that affect their community's future? How can GIS be implemented in actual school systems? Mapping Our City is a two-year project funded by the National Science Foundation that is attempting to answer these questions. The project is developing an introductory unit: Mapping Our Neighborhood - A Guide to Getting Started with GIS, model curriculum units that use GIS as a tool in science investigations, and a guide for educators, A Resource Guide for GIS in Urban Education. The project is being carried out by TERC, a non-profit R and D corporation in Cambridge, MA. Although the project is located in Boston, its results are intended for national and international application. The research and development goals being pursued in Mapping Our City grow out of the recommendations of the First National Conference on the Educational Application of Geographic Information Systems (EdGIS) held in Washington, D.C., in January, 1994. We will share the results of our work during the first year of the project and discuss our development plans for the second year of work.
Responsible environmental behavior has been cited as the ultimate goal of environmental education. Existing empirical studies indicate that this goal is not being met in schools across America. Environmental educators have the responsibility to produce human beings with what is called an "environmental ethic." With this in mind, Florida Atlantic University and the School District of Palm Beach County developed a GIS curriculum for grades 9-12, which was approved by the Florida State Department of Education as "Geoscience." The curriculum was implemented during the 1994-1995 school year at Jupiter Community High School. Based on the success of this course, the GIS program has been expanded to include the middle school level, where GIS is taught as three separate courses in grades 6-8.WHY GIS? GIS technology is the tool that empowers students to solve real-life problems. GIS produces students with an environmental ethic and fosters a transformation in students' self-esteem and value systems. The mechanics of GIS reveal the realization that environmental problems are really science-related social problems.RESEARCH: Research was conducted to determine how GIS instruction was a crucial factor in improving and changing students' attitudes in environmental education. The High School Environmental Literacy Instrument (courtesy of Florida Institute of Technology) was administered to two high school groups: Jupiter High School students enrolled in the GIS course and Jupiter High School students enrolled in a regular environmental science course using the state-adopted environmental science curriculum. Preliminary results indicate that students who participated in the GIS class were more familiar with ecological issues and foundations than the environmental science group; they also demonstrated improved self-reported behavior on environmental issues, demonstrated a higher awareness in perceived environmental knowledge and action, and were able to conduct a more in-depth environmental issue analysis. Final results to be presented at the Esri conference.
Berkeley Geo-Research Group (BGRG), in collaboration with NASA's EOCAP'94 Program and Esri's Developer Program, is developing a comprehensive and integrated application of remote sensing and geographic information systems for K-12 schools. This application, GEODESY (Geographic Development: An Educational Series for Youth), is designed to bring the power and intelligence of the well-established spatial information industry into the K-12 school arena. The major components of GEODESY are remote sensing and GIS software built upon Esri's ArcView 2 product, a customized local data set, training, and a curriculum-based graphic user interface designed in accordance with the 1994 Geography for Life Standards. This interface focuses on integrating earth's physical and human systems to provide a complete geography curriculum tool for grades 4, 8, and 12. Funding through NASA's EOCAP'94 Program has allowed BGRG to focus on a two-year pilot study for the development of GEODESY.
The District of Columbia Public School System (DCPS) currently operates 164 schools and their associated administrative buildings. The "Task Force On Education Infrastructure For The 21st Century" (Task Force), established by DCPS Superintendent in February 1995, was asked to develop a long term strategy to modernize the public school facilities in the District of Columbia. In order to verify and update the 1992 facilities assessment, PRI conducted a visual inspection of the schools as well as their broken and/or malfunctioning building systems. In addition to conducting the school inspections, PRI prepared a unit price list for all observed deficiencies. The deficiencies were classified into major building components established by the DCPS. PRI then created a deficiency cost database for the 164 schools using the observed deficiency quantities and adjusted 1995 unit prices. Furthermore, the database was created to include status information on the 164 operating DCPS schools, such as name of the school, additional educational programs, average class size, student enrollment, school capacity, community accessibility, comfort and usefulness ratings of various spaces, handicap accessibility, room closings due to health or safety considerations, and rating of facility components like roof, windows, boilers, and drinking fountains. GIS themes utilized include ward boundaries, school locations, attendance zones, and streets. The deficiency cost data, as well as the status data, was then reviewed and restructured by PRI to enable tabular entry. A total of more than 120 GIS fields for each of 164 schools was prepared to enable logical queries, charts, graphs, etc. Using this GIS application as a decision making tool, DCPS can realistically estimate what major components in schools must be repaired / replaced, the time frame required and the level of maintenance, repair and capital replacement funding that will be necessary for each of the two 5-year funding cycles anticipated i its capital budget through the year 2005.