Between 1990 and 1995 Creighton School District of Phoenix, Arizona, increased its population as did each of its schools. In 1990 the population of the area served by the school district was 53,839, while in 1995 it was 62,924. When compared to State and County rates, the increase of 16.87 percent for Creighton School District is slightly less. However, what is significant about Creighton's growth is that it is not occurring uniformly throughout the district, nor is it impacting all population groups in the same manner. When U.S. census data is analyzed on a school-by-school basis, the demographic profile of Creighton that emerges is very different from one generated using district-level analyses. This paper describes how GIS analyses helped to highlight the school-level variability within the Creighton district and discusses GIS efforts to encourage, promote, and aid teacher action research and community service learning aimed at community problem solving and decision making.