Randall E. Raymond
Geographic Information Systems
Department of Strategic Planning and Resource Analysis
Detroit Public Schools
5057 Woodward Room 270
Detroit, MI 48202
phone: 313-494-1336
fax: 313-494-2269
e-mail: aerraymond@aol.com

The Urban Environmental Education in Detroit (UEEID) program began as an effort to engage high school students in meaningful studies of their urban environment. Several critical questions were considered:

1. Where can students learn to better appreciate the natural environment that exists in their urban community?
2. Can we train high school students to be teacher assistants for elementary school teachers, to aide in the delivery of a more hands-on, minds-on exploration of their environment through science education, environmental education and outdoor education activities?
3. Can we make better use of a valuable ecological resource by engaging students in meaningful summer experiences working at an "urban" and island located nature center.
4. Can urban high school students become effective "others" and "age appropriate" role models for elementary age urban students.

Under a program sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and funded by Toyota Motor Sales, USA known as the TAPESTRY program, a proposal was submitted and funded to develop an education outreach effort that would address these issues.

For teachers and students in all areas, especially in urban areas, it is important to recognize that most school-based education takes place in a relatively small classroom. Often students are taught the concepts of complex ecological systems without ever engaging the students in an understanding or exploration of their immediate local environment. For many urban dwellers they have no personal experiences with the natural environment. However, the City of Detroit actually owns an island community that has long been recognized as one of the "birding hotspots" in North America, known as Belle Isle. The Department of Recreation for the City of Detroit operates and maintains the Belle Isle Nature Center located on the eastern end of the island.

As can be seen in the air photo there are many events associated with Belle Isle including the Gold Cup hydroplane races and the Detroit Grand Prix race.

The Belle Isle Nature Center is located in the heavily wooded east end of the island. At this facility the students were introduced to the role of a nature center in helping people learn to appreciate and value their environment. Here they met and worked with the naturalist to understand the flora and fauna of the area. The learned how to interactwith the visitors and maintain the exhibits. They conducted nature walks to inform the visitors.

Throughout the training and learning activities the UEEID students had the opportunity to interact with a variety of individuals from many different areas.

At the Kellogg Biological Station of Michigan State University the students met with other young people from throughout the State of Michigan. Here they had the opportunity to learn more about bio-diversity as they explored the environment around Gull Lake.

They participated in role playing scenarios to learn more about their own attitudes and the attitudes of others. Through these activities the students were exposed to the new ways of thinking about the world around them. They conducted investigations of the bio-diversity of Gull Lake and KBS Experimental Forest. For the first time many of the students learned that being involved in ecological investigations was a rewarding experience.

As the students gained in their confidence and understanding they participated in several other conferences.

At a Bio-Regional conference on the Great Lakes in Chicago the UEEID students brought so much enthusiasm to the event that they lead in cleaning up the Lake Michigan shoreline as a part of a national shoreline cleanup event that was taking place.

Throughout the entire training program the UEEID students were working at the Belle Isle Nature Center helping the staff and visitors.

At the end of the summer training period the students formed into teaching teams to working with elementary schools. Each of the seven teams was assigned a particular elementary school. The students traveled to their assigned school every other week for the entire school year working with 4^th and 5^th grade teachers and their students. For each session the UEEID team would bring a set of hands-on, minds-on activities to share with the elementary school children. These lessons focused on involving the elementary students in studies of the environment. Lesson materials were designed from various outdoor and environmental education curricula. These included activities from Project Wild, Project Learning Tree, the Michigan United Conservation Clubs schools outreach materials and the Field Manual for Water Quality Analysis by Stapp and Mitchell.

To engage the elementary students in the collection and analysis of data, some activities were designed that required both the UEEID high school aides and the elementary school children to share their research findings about their own backyards. The birds in my backyard adventure best illustrate this. Over 1,800 bird feeder kits were produced.

These wooden and plastic kits required the students to assemble a bird feeder and then collect data about the types of birds that visit a backyard feeder in a Detroit neighborhood. All of the students constructed a bird feed. Data had to be collect twice a day, in the morning and evening. Disposable cameras were provided to the students to enable them to document the types and numbers of birds that visited the feeders. Additional feeders were shared with elementary school children in the suburb of Southfield as well as in a rural school in Zeeland, MI to allow the students to compare and contrast their findings.

The elementary school groups were brought to the Belle Isle Nature Center for field trip experiences that enabled the UEEID high school aides to share their expertise in water quality analysis. These activities provided a new set of experiences for the elementary school children while reinforcing the learning experiences of the high school students. For all of the elementary teachers involved these were new experiences as well.

Other events brought specialists in wildlife recovery into to share with the students about birds of prey. These activities made it possible for the students to see first hand some of the birds being cared for at the raptor recovery center. The birds of prey activities were followed by lessons in bio-magnification in the food chain. Together the students dissect owl pellets to reinforce the learning experiences.

Working with the students brought great rewards for all involved. At Campbell Elementary School the science resource teacher was so impressed with the UEEID student aides that she asked if they could work with her students of special needs part of the time. The relationships that formed between the high school students and the special needs students were amazing. By the end of the first year of the program a special birthday party was held for one of the Campbell students and all of his classmates.

As the UEEID students matured they became more interested in learning of ways that they could immediately impact positive change in the City of Detroit. Many of the neighborhoods that they visited had abandon and burned out homes and businesses. All of the elementary schools in the program were located in some of the most economically and environmentally depressed neighborhoods in the City of Detroit. A new round of funding brought more resources to the UEEID program. This made it possible to explore additional activities. At the same time computer technology was rapidly become more and more powerful at the desktop level. Environmental Systems Research Institute in Redlands, Ca. was producing a product known as a geographic information system (GIS). This software made it possible to combine all types of data into thematic layers and visually map the relationships among the data sets. It was apparent that this software would play an important role in understanding our resources. The software was purchased and immediately students began to learn how these additional tools could be used in the UEEID program.

The first real opportunity to make use of this technology came from the Central Business District Association of Detroit (CBDA) and its president, Diane Edgecomb. The CBDA was attempting to conduct an abandon and vacant building survey of the downtown core of the City of Detroit. It was proposed that the students from the UEEID program with their new technology knowledge might be able to provide a valuable service to the CBDA, while learning. In a matter of only a few months the students were able to construct a complete multimedia GIS of for the CBDA.

Ms. Edgecomb enthusiastically supported the work of the UEEID students. She promoted their abilities and the applications of GIS to the City of Detroit. At the time the City of Detroit was in the process of applying for a $100 million federal empowerment zone designation. The application process required a lot of information about the demographics of the "zone area" being proposed. It was suggested to Mayor Dennis Archer that the UEEID students might be able to aid the City by mapping some of these relationships for the proposal. Students were identified to work on the project and specific assignments were made about the types of information each would be preparing. In the end a complete mapping of this area was accomplished. They mapped all of the demographic information from the U.S. Census. They included information about the schools and educational attainment. The work included photographs and exhibits of some of the most depressed areas within this "empowerment zone". Many of the abandon industrial sites that were included required significant investigation and ultimate remediation. This brought the UEEID program to a new level of urban ecological awareness. The program now included the activities with the elementary schools while at the same time engaging the students in mapping of the entire Detroit area.

The ability of the students to provide valuable information services to the community at large opened the UEEID program to many new activities. Working with The University of Michigan School of Public Health increased the awareness of the students to the danger of lead contamination in household drinking water in older cities. The engineering firm of Tucker, Young Jackson and Tull invited the students to map the locations of all of the homes that had lead pipe water service from the water main in the street to the house. In these residences as much as 200 ppm of lead can accumulated in the water standing in the pipes in an eight hour period. This investigation required the students to explore how the risk of lead exposure might be reduced. They discovered that simply flushing to toilet could be used as an effective way of eliminating lead accumulation in household drinking water. Students from the UEEID program turned this activity into a national award-winning project when then were selected as the National Winners of the Seiko Youth Challenge in 1995.

Today the UEEID program now involves students from all of the Detroit Public Schools in an advanced studies program in combination with Wayne State University. The students meet every Saturday from early January to May. They work in a computer lab in the School of Engineering learning many advanced applications of GIS software. These activities are directly connected to many different business partners in the community who are using GIS.

Working with partners at Eastern Michigan University and Henry Ford Community College the Work/Site Alliance – Community Based GIS Education program (WSA_GIS) has now been developed. This program not only engages the students but their teachers as well. Four different model high school programs in the Metropolitan Detroit region are participating in this National Science Foundation funded program.

In the high schools, interdisciplinary teams of four teachers and four students per teacher work on community-based projects. These address urban issues that affect the communities. Companies/organizations provide "real life" projects and data for students to develop GIS solutions focusing on urban issues such as public safety, crime reduction, brown field redevelopment, and environmental justice. The model joins partners committed to GIS -- two traditional educational institutions with businesses -- to train GIS educators and to develop curriculum which integrates employer-defined, work-based GIS projects. The curriculum permits students to be GIS practitioners while being engaged in formal GIS education. Because the WORK/SITE approach, when fully implemented, relies on an existing traditional educational infrastructure, it facilitates an efficient use of societal resources in expanding the availability of trained GIS personnel. Students are now engaged in the completion of work related projects within the context of the regular school day schedule. Contracts with Wayne County, Mi. for work on brown field redevelopment, transportation projects and community information systems are all being worked on by the teachers and students together.

This work continues to show that students engaged in purposeful applications of technology based education could have a dramatic impact on their lives and their communities at the same time. Many agencies and community based organization now call on the students to assist them with projects. They are mapping out all of the neighborhood gardens in the Detroit Agriculture Network. As the gardens are photographed, soil samples are taken and analyzed for heavy metal content. Students are relating the data findings to the living conditions in the neighborhoods.

Recently much interest has been given to a mapping project that shows 5,396 school age children who tested positive for blood lead poisoning in 1998. Until the students mapped this information, little attention was given to the data. In the GIS it is possible to see the spatial relationships that exist in this information and begin to ask questions about how these conditions can be corrected.

Using the tools of GIS in the UEEID program has really provided a new way of thinking about what high school students can contribute back to the community. For too long students have been viewed as the receivers of education with little opportunity to provide back to the community. In today’s world, these technologically able young people can begin to fill the gaps. They are able to collect data, manipulate data, analyze data and report their findings in ways that were never possible in the past. Programs and activities that consistently enable the students to go beyond the learning taking place in the classroom are essential to our future.