Fun with GIS 322: The AP May Challenge
Esri’s ArcGIS Online Competition for US HS+MS Students ends in May. States submit results in mid-May, so schools collect and judge those in early May, if not before. Many teachers have said "We would do the Competition if students could do it in May. We’re looking for things to do with their ArcGIS logins after the AP exams!"
So ... do it! Hold your own class/school/district/program event! Use the national or state guidelines, or set your own. Let students pick a topic and exercise the skills they’ve spent all year developing, maybe even in teams. These won’t be in the Esri event but are still worth doing. Set the due date to allow time for sharing with the school community and even beyond. Show that this is serious!
Want a topic? How about: "Design changes to public resources or public policy that will help a locally vulnerable population withstand expected changes in climate." This has something for everyone -- people, vulnerability, resilience, sustainability, big patterns, local issues, engineering, math, science, history, geography, communication.
"Great ... but where do we even begin to learn about this?" See https://resilience.climate.gov, "Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation" (aka CMRA, or "cam-ra"). There’s a nice 5-minute video intro, and the "Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS" (= "T3G") group recorded a one-hour webinar on understanding and using the site. CMRA has data at scales of county, census tract, and tribal land, with tons of resources to follow, plus guidance on how locales might find funding to make things happen.
What could be a better challenge for AP (and non-AP) students? Research a local vulnerability, using professionally generated government data, synthesize it with maps and models of today and tomorrow, then design a solution and present the story. Maps and charts about places they know, issues they see, alternatives they generate, and stories they believe in.