Penny Carpenter, a Geographic Information System (GIS) teacher at the Lubbock Independent School District in Lubbock, Texas, made a special project for her students last April 2009 when the H1N1 Virus started spreading around the globe. She thought that using GIS tools would be helpful in monitoring flu outbreaks in their area. The first step that she and her students tried to answer is the question, “What counties in Texas are confirmed with H1N1 Virus?”
Her students knew that the outbreak started in Mexico, so they began collecting reports of infections in border towns. They created a list of counties in a spreadsheet and the data on confirmed cases. They then created a base map of Texas counties and joined the maps attribute table to the spreadsheet data on the county name field. When the appropriate breaks for the data range were done, the confirmed cases of the virus were mapped using graduated colors.
They found out that the highest number of confirmed cases is from the most populated areas, but not border counties. By adding another layer that shows the roadways and airports, they saw that most of these areas were connected to a major roadway.
When the first confirmed case of the virus was announced in Lubbock County, a local network featured the work of Carpenter’s students. Carpenter shared that she was more than just building maps, she also motivates her students to look into the relevant real-world issues, “When students can visualize and see the data on a map, they begin to analyze. And this promotes higher-level thinking skills.”
Source:
GIS Educator
http://www.esri.com/library/newsletter/giseducator/gised-winter10.pdf
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