Collaboration was essential to the success of this project. Because most official archives of Ligon High School had been destroyed, the memories of LHS alumni and their personal memorabilia are critical to recording the history of the school. The project is multifaceted and five middle school teachers and their classes devoted to the diverse aspects: collection of data and creation of Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, collection and documentation of oral histories, study and documentation of architecture, dendrochronology of a tree related to the project, and web publication.University professors coordinated and administered the project and consulted in their areas of expertise: GIS, historiography, and the history of Raleigh. Graduate students collected archival information, helped students interview alumni, and transcribed the interviews. Community partners from the State of North Carolina Archives, the Raleigh GIS office, the Raleigh City Planning office, and the Wake County GIS office provided archival information, photos, and GIS data.

As a result of Ligon Middle School's magnet status, the teachers involved had some flexibility over the curricula offered in their elective classes. They have county-wide, state-wide, and emerging nation-wide reputations as award-winning educators. In the previous year Hagevik and Thompson had designed and piloted a GIS elective, Satellites, Computers, and Mapping, at the middle school level for heterogeneous groups of sixth to eighth grade students. In their second year, eleven middle school students with varying levels of GIS experience participated in the GIS components of the Ligon History Project as a part of this course. One hundred fifteen students in four additional classes; a journalism elective, a social studies elective, and an electronic publishing elective, and a core science class also participated in the project.

Foundations for this collaboration between the middle school teachers and the university professors had been built in previous collaborations. (Alibrandi, forthcoming) Collaboration with the university's College of Education faculty had been ongoing with the two GIS teachers. One, an Instructional Technology specialist, had had many collaborative Internet projects through MEGA, a university initiative. The other, a science teacher, had studied GIS in a summer in-service teacher education institute organized by Sci-Link, an environmental education initiative at the university, and the NC Department. of Environmental Health & Natural Resources Environmental Education division.

Success in a project of this magnitude requires the collective expertise and cooperation of all these groups. The results of the collaboration has begun rebuilding relationships between the educational community and the African American community, a factor that we all see as critical to Ligon GT Magnet Middle School and its community.