4-H Clubs use GIS and GPS technology to learn about their communities. Community service is an important aspect of the 4-H Life Skills Model; therefore, many of the clubs are incorporating GIS technology into their community service projects. The following are excerpts from reports submitted by 4-H clubs about their GIS and GPS activities and observations.
We have created a map of fires in the Tonto Basin area in 2005 from imported data. We are focusing on fire prevention and natural resources for our activities. The students seem very interested in mapping and creating maps, and we plan to take two more field trips to map fire prevention and prescribed burns during the next two quarters of the school year.
The Glynn County Senior 4-H Sea Monkeys (Georgia) Orange Tide marsh water tracking study pointed local officials to a specific marsh creek where a significant source of the high beach water bacteria levels was located. The study has evolved into an evaluation of trash can coverage and waste disposal capabilities on the local beach. While walking the beach in search of oranges, the group observed an inordinate amount of pet waste and a corresponding shortfall in waste disposal capability. The group mapped existing trash can locations and layered that with a map of the pet waste locations to illustrate the disparity. County officials have agreed to add additional trash cans. Our group also designed a pet bag dispenser consisting of a 5-gallon water bottle turned upside down with strategically drilled holes. The dispenser is designed to hold simple plastic grocery bags—the perfect size for picking up after your pet! The County Commission approved the prototype design and has authorized mass production (25 units).
Special Presentations/Training: Two special training sessions to report:
On September 17, Glynn County 4-H'ers taught a GPS and Geocaching class for other senior 4-H'ers from the Southeast District. We had 30 teenagers participate and each received hands-on training with GPS units.
On October 1, the Glynn 4-H'ers maintained a Geocaching-GPS training booth at the southeast Georgia annual CoastFest celebration (over 5,000 people attended the festival). We utilized a nature trail at the DNR complex, three GPS units, and three hidden caches to teach Geocaching/GPS to young and old alike. Many festival goers reported that they enjoyed learning to use the GPS and exploring a beautiful trail!
Community News, Awards, Recognition: A host of awards and recognition to report!
In October 2005, the group won the First Place Environmental Improvement Award in the statewide Keep Georgia Beautiful contest for our highly successful Orange Tide marsh water tracking study. Group members traveled to Atlanta to attend a special luncheon during which the award was presented.
Winner of the local Keep Georgia and the Golden Isles Beautiful 2005 Civic/Community Service Award for, among other things, our beach trash cans and canine feces mapping efforts (illustrated to county officials the need for additional trash cans along a section of our local beach). The group was also recognized for utilizing "cache in, trash out" (with McDonald's gift certificates as rewards). They put together kits of trash bags and gloves in their geocache boxes, which encourage visitors and locals alike to pick up trash in the vicinity.
In early November 2005, the group was honored by being selected as a Grand Prize winner in the INTERNATIONAL Earthbound3 Challenge (sponsored by the Earthwatch Institute), again for our groundbreaking Orange Tide Study, which helped local officials pinpoint a source of harmful bacteria causing local beach water advisories. Group members traveled to the Earthwatch Institute Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to accept the award ($12,000 to be used toward participation in any upcoming Earthwatch Expedition of our choosing).
Winning the Earthbound3 Challenge has led to a feature article in the local newspaper, the Brunswick News. A feature article will soon also appear in the statewide publication, Georgia Faces.
Over the last few months (as the Orange Tide Study was being conducted), the group was featured numerous times in local newspapers. The National 4-H Council also reported that articles have appeared in 56 other newspapers and publications across the country.
Awarded the First Place fair booth at the Brunswick Exchange Club Fair. GIS was the theme of the booth.
Successes and Hurdles: The Orange Tide study, by all accounts, was a highly successful project and the winner of multiple awards as described throughout this report. As the study evolved into a focused beach cleanup effort, a major hurdle we faced was in convincing local officials we had a problem. Mapping existing trash receptacles and pet dropping locations provided the evidence we needed to overcome the hurdle. We overcame the challenges of learning the software and the learning process is still ongoing.
Did getting youth involved in Geospatial technology produce the desired results: Without a doubt, introducing our teens to Geospatial technology and hands-on learning with GPS made a significant impact with our Orange Tide study. In phase one of the study, we tediously marked the location of oranges we found on the beach on a grid map by hand. In later phases, we were able to professionally present our findings on maps we created. We were also able to clearly illustrate the need for additional trash receptacles on the beach by mapping the existing receptacles and overlaying the locations of pet waste. The evidence was so convincing that local authorities have agreed to install the pet cleanup bag dispensers designed and made by our group (a total of 25 dispensers will be produced). The desired results have been obtained.
Glynn County Senior 4-H Club members, also known as the Pirates of Evacuation Mapping, assisted their county’s GIS department in creating savvy emergency preparedness maps using GIS. Alarmed by the calamity following recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the 4-H team was inspired to create an evacuation plan for the county. The students worked with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency and the GIS department to develop the disaster mitigation map that provides community members with valuable information they can use during a crisis.
Community pickup locations, where citizens can go to be immediately evacuated following an emergency, as well as the best routes to use during a disaster, are depicted on the map. In the process of using GIS to build the map, students learned about traffic flow analysis, emergency routing, risk assessment, and other conditions. To date, 4,500 maps have been distributed in the county.
A grant from the National Geographic Society enables students to teach evacuation mapping as part of a nationwide community readiness program called Alert, Evacuate, and Shelter (AES), developed by the society, ESRI, and other partners. ESRI donates GIS software as part of the program. AES encourages 4-H youth to use their acquired leadership skills to educate their communities about how to safely evacuate a dangerous area and to find the nearest shelter during a hurricane or other disaster.
The 4-H Pirates of Evacuation Mapping will present their map at the 2008 ESRI User Conference. Because of the students’ work in improving community safety through innovative and meaningful mapping, they will also be presented with a Special Achievement in GIS Award at the conference.
Fourth graders in the Lisbon Community School Paw Print 4-H Club learn about maps and features when they were introduced to physical maps. Blindfolds were borrowed from friends in Kindergarten and fingers were used before eyes. Now they know that the things they felt were "made by Mother Nature" and are the features on a physical map.
Lisbon Community School Paw Print 4-H Club members explore the world using ArcGlobe.
4-H Club member Seth Marvil, 18 years old, used GIS technology to advance emergency preparedness in his hometown of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Reaching about 1,000 hours of work, Marvil’s efforts have included creating digital maps for emergency responders, surveying officials about the town’s emergency preparedness tools, distributing emergency survival kits to seniors, and even finishing citizen emergency response training so he’s able to assist rescue crews in an emergency.
Marvil collected the coordinates of landmarks such as fire hydrants, transformer poles, historic homes, churches, and cemeteries using a GPS unit. He then used the data to build digital maps that rescue officials could use in their fire and emergency response. “It’s important to be able to share the data with local officials,” said Marvil, who received training on ESRI’s software—compatible with his county—from his 4-H Club.
His work began as a 4-H Club service project and grew into a comprehensive effort to save lives in Sharpsburg. “The use of GIS has helped my community be brought into the 21st century as well as heighten awareness about the need for this kind of information,” said Marvil. “I hope that through the development of my project, Sharpsburg can be used as a model and facilitate the use of the technologies in other small communities that require access to geospatial knowledge for adequate safety.”
Enlarge map This map shows the attribute nearness and small areas that could become a hazardous trap quickly. The homes and buildings are located in close proximity to each other and sometimes even connected. The electrical and drainage areas are potential hazards as well, particularly during high winds and floods as the streets are lined by trees.
The largest GIS and GPS 4-H project took place at the July 2004 National 4-H Technology Leadership Conference held in July at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. State teams of 4-H'ers attend this biannual national technology conference to learn about a variety of technologies including Aerospace, Biotechnology, Digital Audio and Video, Robotics, E-Government and E-Democracy, and Digital Photography. The 2004 conference was the first year that a GPS/GIS was offered.
Three hundred and fifty 4-H youth and leaders from across the U.S. participated in the GPS and GIS mapping project to inventory signage and parking at Forest Park. Forest Park is 1,293 acres and is one of the largest urban parks in the U.S. It was the site of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and today attracts more than 12 million visitors annually. It is the home to the region's major cultural institutions-the Zoo, Art Museum, History Museum, Science Center, and the Muny Opera. It also serves as a sports center for golf, tennis, baseball, bicycling, boating, fishing, handball, ice skating, roller blading, jogging, cricket, rugby, and more.
Forest Park is equally significant from a naturalistic perspective. In a city where 80% of the land has been developed for business, industry, or residential uses, the park serves as a natural oasis for the city, an important source of green space, a respite for migrating birds, and an integrated ecosystem where humans and nature interact.
State of Missouri 4-H Extension Agents and a handful of 4-H youth met with Forest Park staff in May and June to discuss the park needs for a community project. On the drizzly Sunday morning of the conference, three hundred and fifty 4-H'ers were divided into teams of 4-8 and used Digital Cameras, GPS, clipboard paper technology (an excellent recording device that isn't dependent on battery power), as well as a few handheld devices loaded with ArcPad. The data collection efforts of the 4-H youth included recording signage information: location (longitude & latitude), type of sign (informational, regulatory, historical, etc.), material (wood, metal, plastic, other), dimensions (height, width), condition (new, good, fair, poor, needs replacement), text, and distance from curb and comments (obscured by tree). During the remainder of the National Technology conference, 4-H'ers learned to incorporate the data and photos collected into a GIS project using ArcGIS 8.3 technology. The 4-H Forest Park GIS and GPS project was later handed over to the City of St. Louis Department of Parks, Recreation, and Forestry to add to the Forest Park plan.
In January 2005, ESRI, a privately held consulting firm that specializes in land use analysis projects, joined with National 4-H; Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CREES); and U.S. Department of Agriculture to offer a hands-on learning opportunity using technology. The grant supplied support, software, and tutorial materials.
The grant mission focuses on the principles of organizing and analyzing geographic information. Cornell Cooperative Extension, Schenectady County 4-H staff, and three youths decided to evaluate whether the grant would be something to pursue. The youth and educator met with Mark Storti from the Schenectady County Planning Department to discuss the use of GIS in the Planning Department. After several meetings, the 4-H'ers, two dedicated trained volunteers, and a 4-H educator decided to take on the challenge of applying for the grant.
Developing their personal mission of mapping Schenectady County Snowmobile trails with GPS/GIS technology took hours of discussion and research. The information to be collected would focus on economic development and natural resources. Collecting surrounding county data and integrating the present data was also a factor to consider when working on the project. Photography would have to be used and meetings with community organizations to collect their data would have to be set in motion. The application hadn't been submitted yet and already seven adults and youth were learning a great deal. The project was submitted in March and the youth were awarded the GIS Software and tech support in April. The software was delivered and registered by mid-May.
The project, when complete, will become apart of the SIMSGIS Mapping system for Schenectady County and then be accessed by organizations across the nation. Tutorials with Mark Storti have been very beneficial and will continue to take place. Please view the timeline, which highlights project steps.
2005 4-H GIS Project Timeline
Mid-May to Mid-June
Tutorial
Mid-June to September
Collecting, identifying data
September to November
Application of data layers into SIMSGIS system
November
Presentation of Snowmobile map, 2005 GIS Day, Schenectady County Public Library
Late December 2005
Launch the new map into the Schenectady Internet Mapping Systems.
Chenango County Science and Technology 4-H Club, Norwich (New York).
Our Group Two—Agriculture and Environmental Science Class—finished their project in early 2005 and created their Web site. They examined land-use change over time and created some wonderful maps.
The Bradford County Science and Technology 4-H Club in Pennsylvania is under way with its project. After consulting with the Bradford County planning office, they needed the location of all the dry hydrants in Bradford County. (A dry hydrant is a hydrant set up at a large pond or lake. A fire truck can hook up to the hydrant and pump
water from the pond. These are very important water sources for fire protection in a rural area.) Each fire company knows the location of the hydrants in its response areas, but other fire companies generally do not. Since other fire companies are often called to assist during fires, it is important that these companies have access to the locations. With some other monies available from our forest resources program in Bradford County Extension, we were able to purchase four Garmin GPS 60 units. At an early organizational meeting, the 4-H members (the number of participants is still growing) have been trained how to use these units to mark and name waypoints (the dry hydrants). After the first meeting, the 4-H members are teaching the new members how to use these units.
Club members have located and mapped 12 of the dry hydrants in the county. They have also been taking digital photographs of each of the hydrants, and we will include these as hyperlinks to each hydrant point. The youth presented their dry hydrant project ideas to the county fire chiefs at their December quarterly meeting and explained the project. The chiefs are excited about this project. A finished map will be completed by early spring. Attached is a photo taken by one of the 4-H'ers of one of the hydrants they located and a photo of the initial meeting as the 4-H'ers learned how to use the GPS units.
We hosted a one-day workshop as a part of Operation Military Kids, an Army initiative to reach out to Guard and Reserve youth, in partnership with South Carolina Clemson 4-H Extension. The event included an introduction to GPS/GIS technology. Invitations to the event went out to the Fort Jackson community, Shaw Air Force Base, McEntire Air Force Base, Charleston Air Base, Fort Gordon Youth Center, and Beaufort National Guard. Ten adults and 75 youth, ages 6 to 18, attended the event.
We conducted an instructional session on how to use a GPS hand-held unit and then provided an opportunity for the attendees to participate in a scavenger hunt. The youth were given the coordinates for 13 items hidden around the grounds of the Youth Center. Each item was a portion of a 13-piece puzzle representing the 13 counties in South Carolina. Once all 13 pieces of the puzzle were located, the youth brought them back inside the Youth Center and put the puzzle together, completing the message "Managing Our World: Doing What You Can." The one-day workshop was successful and generated interest from youth involved in GIS/GPS technology.
Dixie Tech Team 4-H Members with adult leader as they prepare to head off for a day of noxious weed identification and mapping
The Dixie Tech Team is comprised of 12–18-year-old youth. They have a wide variety of interests, but they all love technology and 4-H. As a club, we have built computers, developed basic Web sites, and worked with robots. They love working with GPS and find mapping what data they have collected fun. Some members of the team enjoy one over the other, but they all love technology and the cool things they can do with it.
Community Project and Community Atlas Project
Snow Canyon State Park is a beautiful formation of sandstone canyons located in the upper desert of Washington County, Utah. Its close proximity to thousands of local residents and the larger, very popular Zion National Park makes it a great recreation spot. With the heavy use it sees, the park has been impacted greatly. One of the growing concerns facing the park and its staff is the invasive weeds being brought in by the visiting public. Not only were these plants affecting local plant diversity, the park staff worried about their impacts on an endangered species found in the park, the Desert Tortoise.
Last summer, the 4-H Dixie Tech Team was approached by the park naturalist with the request of mapping out these damaging plants. The team focused on five important species but mapped other invaders as well. The results of this spring's mapping has yielded some great information. With over 300 man-hours spent collecting data, the tech team has mapped out 80% of the park. With continued effort and ongoing GPS and GIS training, the 4-H Tech Team plans on updating this project for years to come.
This has been a great project for our Tech Team. We were able to see some great country, go cross country where others can't go, and learn a ton about making maps! We developed skills in GPS, downloading to a computer, editing layers, datum and coordinate systems, projections (ugh!), maps that have too much data (messy), and a number of other mapmaking skills. We are all feeling a little overwhelmed trying to finish up this project and school at the same time. We had a late spring with the weeds taking their sweet time coming up. This pushed our mapping time to a four-week period (May). Luckily, most of our base layers had been created.
I'm really proud of our team. They could have taken on an easier task, but they chose this one and stuck with it.
The Klickitat Kanyon Kids 4-H club (Washington) community service project is to assist the Klickitat Trail Conservancy with identification of key trail features using GPS. We will then use ArcView 9 to create an interpretive map for the KTC. This trail is a rail-bed conversion that is over 23 miles long, and our work with the KTC has just begun. Several members recently volunteered to help with a trail work party where walking gates were installed next to the heavy, large, ranch livestock gates along the trail. Members carried tools and supplies, took GPS readings at gate locations, and cleared rocks from the trail.
Our Community Atlas project will be to post our interpretive Klickitat Trail map so that local and tourist trail users can have an enhanced hiking experience. The mapping of the Klickitat Trail will include identification of mileposts, geologic features, gates, restrooms, native plants, etc.
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Fourth graders in the Lisbon Community School Paw Print 4-H Club learn about maps and features when they were introduced to physical maps. Blindfolds were borrowed from friends in Kindergarten and fingers were used before eyes. Now they know that the things they felt were "made by Mother Nature" and are the features on a physical map.
Lisbon Community School Paw Print 4-H Club members explore the world using ArcGlobe.
water from the pond. These are very important water sources for fire protection in a rural area.) Each fire company knows the location of the hydrants in its response areas, but other fire companies generally do not. Since other fire companies are often called to assist during fires, it is important that these companies have access to the locations. With some other monies available from our forest resources program in Bradford County Extension, we were able to purchase four Garmin GPS 60 units. At an early organizational meeting, the 4-H members (the number of participants is still growing) have been trained how to use these units to mark and name waypoints (the dry hydrants). After the first meeting, the 4-H members are teaching the new members how to use these units.
Base, Charleston Air Base, Fort Gordon Youth Center, and Beaufort National Guard. Ten adults and 75 youth, ages 6 to 18, attended the event.
The Klickitat Kanyon Kids 4-H club (Washington) community service project is to assist the Klickitat Trail Conservancy with identification of key trail features using GPS. We will then use ArcView 9 to create an interpretive map for the KTC. This trail is a rail-bed conversion that is over 23 miles long, and our work with the KTC has just begun. Several members recently volunteered to help with a trail work party where walking gates were installed next to the heavy, large, ranch livestock gates along the trail. Members carried tools and supplies, took GPS readings at gate locations, and cleared rocks from the trail.
Our Community Atlas project will be to post our interpretive Klickitat Trail map so that local and tourist trail users can have an enhanced hiking experience. The mapping of the Klickitat Trail will include identification of mileposts, geologic features, gates, restrooms, native plants, etc.