Overview

In addition to the required coursework you will be assigned a collaborative research project or the Service Learning Project, where you will select a problem that you observe in your community and offer solutions by conducting an in depth study utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The theme of the project changes every year, from environmental justice to health and wellness and students have studied topics ranging from Visual Pollution, Food Deserts, Educational Equity, PTSD, Teen Criminalization, etc, all using GIS to note geographic data patterns and make a difference in their community. With this project our school was honored to have four of our students selected to speak at the 2013 ESRI Users Conference in San Diego, in front of a crowd of over 15,000 GIS professionals, sharing their GIS knowledge and their research findings.

You will be presenting your findings in an educational conference setting to an audience of your peers, teachers, and community members. This is a year long research project that requires that you to utilize the APA Research Method and GIS in order to geo-visualize a problem that you have observed in your community. To complete your project you are required to write a 20–page research paper, create a portfolio, survey ,interview experts, and create GIS maps. This last piece is important as you have to make sure that the problem that you have identified is mappable.