‘Socially Distanced Community Engagement’ –Teaching GIS Site-Analysis during COVID

Jessie Marshall Zarazaga; Cindy Hua; Janille Smith-Colin

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Community Engagement Division Technical Session 4- COVID and Virtual Learning
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41685
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41685
Download Count: 337

Janille Smith-Colin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Fellow of Caruth Institute for Engineering Education at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She also leads the Infrastructure Projects and Organizations Research Group at SMU, whose mission is to advance sustainability and resilience goals through infrastructure systems research and education focused on developing methods and tools for engineering projects and organizations. Dr. Smith-Colin received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she simultaneously earned a Certificate in Higher Education Teaching and Learning. Her engineering education research interests include the formation of engineering identity in underrepresented girls and women, and the development of professional skills and systems thinking amongst civil engineers. Dr. Smith-Colin was a 2019 American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) ExCEED Teaching Fellow.

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Cindy Hua

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Hello! I am a Ph.D. student in Applied Science for Engineering at Southern Methodist University. My research interests center on how community-based STEM can impact learning patterns and interest in STEM careers. I am equally interested in how such learning can also become a tool for student voice. During my time as a Human Rights Fellow, I created a STEM education program, STEM+Z: Investigating an Undead Apocalypse, using aspects of popular culture phenomena to cultivate interest in learning STEM and environmental justice.

Outside of research, I am an advocate for public education and serves as the leader of the Education Committee with Downwinders at Risk, a North Texas clean air advocacy group, leading community science initiatives to address local environmental justice issues.

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Abstract

In the era of COVID, project-based classes that incorporate community engagement (i.e., interacting with both a physical site and members of the community) as part of their learning approach, have taken a significant blow. When connecting with people becomes an unhealthy practice, how can site-based learning remain embedded in engineering teaching and practice while accommodating virtual education instruction? Within civil and environmental engineering (CEE), GIS mapping has allowed students to step outside the classroom and engage with site-based work while focusing on spatial learning technologies. The open-ended processes of spatial data gathering can be used to draw students into community observation, inviting a focus on ecological and social interactions of infrastructure, site, community, and equity. However, in the era of COVID, the full range of site-based learning processes, including community engagement, are impossible to implement. This paper describes two amended processes for site-based learning through GIS data practices during the post-COVID shutdown period. Pre-COVID versions of the exercises asked student teams to explore a single site by observing and mapping infrastructure. This involved documenting community use of space and interacting with the local community to obtain multi-layered data on social equity, economic, and physical aspects of the site. However, two primary changes were made: in one class students were asked to explore their own local environment rather than travel to a shared site of focus. In the other, student teams collected only visual site-data foregoing the community engagement component. These students then connected electronically with community partners to gather social data. The study draws on data from student participation in two different classes: a large introductory class and a smaller advanced class. Data includes a qualitative analysis of exit interviews with a sub-set of both undergraduate and graduate student participants. This paper examines to what extent the site-based practices retain value given the limits imposed by social distancing, and whether these workarounds reveal unexpected strategies which might be applicable to future remote-learning, and to community-based learning even when physical reconnection is allowed.

Citation
Format

Zarazaga, J. M., & Smith-Colin, J., & Hua, C. (2022, August), ‘Socially Distanced Community Engagement’ –Teaching GIS Site-Analysis during COVID Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41685

TY - CPAPER
AB - In the era of COVID, project-based classes that incorporate community engagement (i.e., interacting with both a physical site and members of the community) as part of their learning approach, have taken a significant blow. When connecting with people becomes an unhealthy practice, how can site-based learning remain embedded in engineering teaching and practice while accommodating virtual education instruction? Within civil and environmental engineering (CEE), GIS mapping has allowed students to step outside the classroom and engage with site-based work while focusing on spatial learning technologies. The open-ended processes of spatial data gathering can be used to draw students into community observation, inviting a focus on ecological and social interactions of infrastructure, site, community, and equity. However, in the era of COVID, the full range of site-based learning processes, including community engagement, are impossible to implement.
This paper describes two amended processes for site-based learning through GIS data practices during the post-COVID shutdown period. Pre-COVID versions of the exercises asked student teams to explore a single site by observing and mapping infrastructure. This involved documenting community use of space and interacting with the local community to obtain multi-layered data on social equity, economic, and physical aspects of the site. However, two primary changes were made: in one class students were asked to explore their own local environment rather than travel to a shared site of focus. In the other, student teams collected only visual site-data foregoing the community engagement component. These students then connected electronically with community partners to gather social data.
The study draws on data from student participation in two different classes: a large introductory class and a smaller advanced class. Data includes a qualitative analysis of exit interviews with a sub-set of both undergraduate and graduate student participants. This paper examines to what extent the site-based practices retain value given the limits imposed by social distancing, and whether these workarounds reveal unexpected strategies which might be applicable to future remote-learning, and to community-based learning even when physical reconnection is allowed.

AU - Jessie Marshall Zarazaga
AU - Janille Smith-Colin
AU - Cindy Hua
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - ‘Socially Distanced Community Engagement’ –Teaching GIS Site-Analysis during COVID
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41685
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41685
ER -