Members of the Collaborative for Higher Education, a well established consortium of Silicon Valley higher education institutions, Foothill Community College and San Jose State University, are developing a two pronged approach to both improve the preparation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technicians entering the work force, and to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with social science and earth science web-based GIS curriculum and geographic information technology education. The first half of the project links the GIS Certification program at Foothill College with the bachelor's and master's level GIS program at San Jose State University by creating a two course curricular sequence to train students to build and maintain a common web-GIS, or internet mapping server (IMS). This IMS serves as the foundation for the second half of the project, which ties in to National Standards in both Science and Geography, and trains both pre-and in-service teachers in the use of IMS-driven course material in the classroom. This project develops an interdisciplinary program that reaches across the fields of science (biological and physical) and social science. In addition, the creation of a web-based GIS/IMS built and maintained by students for students is an original concept developed by this team that advances interdisciplinary cooperation and knowledge and makes this technology accessible to a broad cross-section of underrepresented groups.
This project 1) increases the accessibility of infrastructure for research and education to all levels of public school funding settings, and 2) develops an undergraduate level model curriculum for IMS coursework (to augment an existing GIS certificate program) which articulates between community college and four year schools. Underrepresented groups and school districts without the means to purchase expensive equipment and software are able to participate in this project as well as continue beyond the end date. In this manner the project provides a social benefit that reaches beyond the classroom and provides high school students entering the job market with technical and analytical experience that has been out of reach in the past. The two course IMS curriculum and supporting high school curriculum are being disseminated via the project website. The community college level IMS curriculum serves as a model to the many community college GIS certificate programs currently in place. The IMS curriculum helps to meet the current workforce demand of employers for graduates of community college GIS training programs who have the technical skills to build and maintain a web GIS. Students from both the Foothill/DeAnza Community College District and San Jose State University GIS program are eligible to take the IMS courses developed in the first half of this project.
For additional workforce development and real-world problem solving, the students also participate in internships at NASA Ames Research Center and other federal, state and local agencies. The second half of the project utilizes the GIS data on the IMS built and maintained by students in the Foothill/San Jose State Program for the development of high school social science and earth science based curriculum that is tied to state and national educational standards. The web-based curriculum is centered around an important regional issue, the South Bay Wetlands Restoration Project, but could be adapted to other local issues such as land use modification associated with changing population pressures, urban redevelopment, non-point source pollution, and fire assessment, and other social and scientific concerns.
