Mapping farms and teaching students
Jun 14th, 2007 | By Sue | Category: General, generalDover High School in Delaware Pennsylvania has a really cool program going that not only introduces students to GIS, but also provides a real mapping service to the local community. Agriculture teacher Ron Weaner and tech education teacher Charles Benton have put together a pilot project in conjunction with Adventures in Technology where students in the Ag class mapped two farms using GIS and aerial imagery to highlight features on each farm, including locations of pesticides, fuel, and water sources. This information is especially handy when fighting fires, since chemicals and fuels used and stored on farms can be highly toxic and flammable, and there is no city water supply to tap into when your pump truck runs dry. Once the students completed the maps, they were laminated and placed in containers that can be installed on light poles on the farms for access by emergency personnel. As someone who grew up in rural western New York, I think this is a great project, and it would be really great if similar programs could be started in other places.
The high school is in Dover, Pennsylvania. I’m the first to say I’ve made similar errors and continue to encourage local papers to include that info for those of us reading on the Web!
Some things that tipped me off:
- the bottom of the page included: “Copyright © York Daily Record, 1891 Loucks Road, York, PA 17408, (717) 771-2000″
- instruction was provided by Penn State (not Univ of Delaware, which also has a great geography department)
- the school name is Dover Area High School, not Dover High School, some stats here: http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/pa/753
So these maps are posted outside on a farm and make it a snap for the hopped-up-meth-cookers to find their anhydrious ammonia and phosphorus and propane and fuel?