Space Grant Consortium - University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

and applications of GIS technology allowing students to learn to use the practical applications of
the software. As part of these courses faculty and students worked collaboratively to learn the
software and apply GIS technology to various case scenarios across multiple disciplines.
Over the four years of the grant, this course has provided for initial GIS training for thirteen selfselected
faculty, four support s taff, and 30 s tudents. The faculty trained t hrough t his c ourse
represent t he f ollowing d isciplines; p hysical s cience, b iological s cience, m athematics,
psychology, a dult e ducation, c omputer s cience, and nur sing. T he support s taff m embers ar e
from t he l ibrary an d t he m ath r esource cen ter, and t he e ducational r esource c enter, and a lso
represent t he Q uantitative Literacy s ubcommittee o f th e C ommunication A bility d epartment.
These key support staff have been wonderful student resources and ambassadors for GIS, helping
students w ho ha ve s elected i ndividual r esearch projects a bout G IS o r u sing G IS. O ur i nitial
focus on f aculty training did not include support staff, but through the development of the GIS
course, and the support of the WSGC grant, we have been able to provide training for them with
very little additional cost, and the benefit to students of having these staff resources cannot be
quantified.
Conferences and further professional development. As part of this initiative, faculty and
students have presented at and/or attended professional conferences related to GIS. In addition
to the presentation made on t he first two year grant, “GIS across the Curriculum” at the 2007
WSGC annual meeting, two additional presentations at professional conferences have been given
by Alverno faculty. D r M arilyn R eedy p resented at a r egional co nference o f t he M idwest
Institute for Students and Teachers of Psychology on using GIS in teaching of psychology, and
Dr Jeanna Abromeit presented at a national conference of the American Sociological Association
on using GIS across the disciplines in a liberal arts college.
The GIS steering committee also prepared and presented a seminar, titled “Teaching the Abilities
with a P lace in M ind: G IS A cross th e C urriculum”, h eld a t Alverno’s f aculty in stitute in
September 2007. This was presented to the entire faculty, and included a presentation b y our
outside c onsultants, our U WM s teering committee m embers, a nd A lverno f aculty who ha d
already i ncorporated G IS r elated a ctivities i nto c urriculum. It also i ncluded a h ands-on
exploration of GIS related activities and resources.
Additional professional development in the form of conference attendance has been encouraged,
and faculty and students have attended four regional conferences of GIS users, sponsored by the
Wisconsin Land Information Association, and the ESRI Wisconsin Users group.
Based on faculty and student interest in specific disciplines, invited speakers have been set up for
several Alverno groups, and plans have been made to set up additional speakers. Paul Vepraskas
has been invited to speak at the department meeting for Business and Management, and also for
graduate s tudents i n t he S chool of N ursing, where a p roject r elated t o developing a G IS for
documenting slip and fall incidents in a nursing home was developed.
Dr Reedy has continued with her GIS related work, and spending her sabbatical year working on
a G IS r elated pr oject on s ocial geography, a nalyzing r ural a nd ur ban ne eds us ing on -line G IS
data. She wrote two hands-on GIS curriculum units from this study, one for grades 5 - 12 social
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