Project Summary

Foothill College has been awarded a $450,000 National Science Foundation grant for an innovative project to bring cutting-edge web mapping technology into high school and college classrooms. The three year project is titled "Using a web-based GIS to teach problem-based science in high school and college" and is led by K. Allison Lenkeit Meezan of Foothill College. Meezan is partnered with Richard Taketa, Ellen Metzger and Cindy Schmidt of San Jose State University.

The grant consists of two parts. In the first part, Foothill has teamed up with San Jose State University to offer classes on building and maintaining Web based Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Web-based GIS such as Google Maps, MapQuest and Yahoo Maps have become ubiquitous, and the skills to build and maintain these systems are in high demand from many employers.

In the second part of the grant, middle and high school students will be able to learn about Web GIS as a real world tool used by scientists. The students in the Foothill College/San Jose State class will build their Web GIS using scientific data surrounding the San Francisco/San Joaquin bay delta region with a focus on watersheds and biodiversity. Middle and high school students will then be able to conduct experiments and analyze real world, real time data.

The grant will fund K-12 level curriculum development that will tie in to No Child Left Behind and National Curriculum Standards in both Science and Geography, and provide workshops for both pre-and in-service teachers in the use of Web GIS-driven course material in the classroom. It is the hope of the principle investigators that this project will evolve into a repository of scientific data maintained by students, for students. The project will bring the work of professional scientists into any high school classroom with an internet connection; while simultaneously providing workforce training in high demand technology based jobs.