Community Geography and GIS in Belize with Community Members, Undergraduates, and K-12 Teachers
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Faculty, Staff, Students
Dr. Timothy L. Hawthorne
National Geographic Explorer
Chair and Professor
Auburn University Department of Geosciences
Community geographers have long been interested in ways in which participants from outside of the academic geography world can contribute their experiential knowledge of place into research and teaching practices. Through an NSF-funded undergraduate and K-12 teacher program, since 2016, the Citizen Science GIS team has worked with community members and leaders in Hopkins Village, Belize to document community knowledge related to flooding and disaster management. In this work students and teachers engage in drone mapping, interviews, and participatory sketch mapping with community members to address two key research questions: a) where have community members experienced flooding related to existing infrastructure and b) where have new flooding hotspots occurred, especially in relation to increased impervious surface runoff and increased development? To address these questions, students and teachers each summer engage in individual interviews and sketch mapping activities with 50-75 community members. Results from the interviews aggregated together show a collective understanding of flood experiences in the village from the perspectives of community members and help to provide pertinent spatial information to decision-makers to argue for additional community resources and mitigation strategies. The work provides a case study and set of methods for use by other scholars and practitioners around the globe who wish to integrate local knowledge through community geography, sketch mapping, and GIS. In this talk, I share an overview of the work along with a specific focus on ethics and teaching practices in a community-based research training program focused on undergraduates and K-12 teachers
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Grand River Room, Kirkhof Center
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This event was added to the calendar by Amanda Reader (readera@gvsu.edu) on Thursday, November 14, 2024 and was last updated on Friday, November 22, 2024 at 9:09 a.m.