This project builds a regional, multidisciplinary database on local watersheds using the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platform. The database supports three curricular innovations by allowing the university to (1) introduce GIS as a novel multidisciplinary tool to teach lower-division nonmajors about science, (2) incorporate a variety of GIS applications by adding Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology to enhance upper- division, field-based courses in the sciences, and (3) expand our present GIS capability to support multidisciplinary and collaborative undergraduate research. Faculty and students from four disciplines (Biology, Geography, Geology, Environmental Health), with a combined population of over 700 majors, participate in this project. The new equipment enables the university to integrate GIS capabilities across multiple disciplines, to provide reasonable access to the regional GIS database by students and by faculty who will be involved in curriculum development, and to provide the new technology to gather primary site data in field-based courses and in student research.
