Last updated 4/8/2016 4:37:20 PM
The EAST Initiative is pleased to award more than $4,000 in advanced technical training to two EAST Core schools for educational STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) projects.
“It’s Tree-rific on the Trails at Cane Creek State Park”
Star City High School
Cody Rowland, Spencer Gay, Gina Richard
Students at Star City High will inventory trees along the walking and biking trails in the park utilizing GPS and GIS technology to be stored in the National Resource and Inventory Database (NRID) Students will work in teams and gather information along the trails such as tree location, identification, size, value, condition, fruit and health. New tree planting locations will also be recommended for specific species based on the data gathered along the trails. Maps will be constructed and provided to the park outlining the trees along the trails which show species and recommendations for new plantings. Also, students will use the gathered information to conduct data analysis for tree location, size and value and provide the information to Cane Creek State Park. The information entered into NRID with become available to Cane Creek park guests. Throughout the project series, student learning will support the Algebra I Common Core Standards in Creating Equations, Reasoning with Equations and Inequalities, Interpreting Functions and Building Functions. As this project continues, data can be started with the current ninth grade students and analyzed over the period of their high school experience in additional EAST Core projects.
Community partners/clients: Seth Boone, Park Interpreter at Cane Creek State Park, Lincoln County Cooperative Extension Service
“Flooding in Arkansas”
Harrisburg High School
Andrea Harder, Toni Hall, Steve Rorex
The World Geography class at Harrisburg High School, taught by Ms. Andrea Harder, would like to create a flood plain map of every county in the state of Arkansas and also a combined map. This map would coincide with the theme of "weather" that all of our EAST Core classes have chosen as a collaborative project this semester.
According to Arkansas State frameworks, the students enrolled in World Geography must interpret a variety of maps and images (SG.1.WH.4). They must also create maps to illustrate information about people, places, and environment (SG.1.WH.9). In addition, students should also be able to research the physical characteristics of places/regions which must be considered before developing an area, ie: flood plains, (PR.2.WH.4)
Although there are many more frameworks that apply to this subject area, we feel that these are the most applicable to our project. The student's in Ms. Harder's World Geography class meet in the EAST Core room every Friday to collaborate, analyze, and research using project based learning. They have recently been exploring flood plain maps from various regions and have started tutorials in the ArcGIS tutorial book provided by ESRI.
Community partners/clients: Randy Mills, Mayor of Harrisburg, AR and Frank Kraft, Poinsett County Office of Emergency Management