CITYgreen as an Example of the Problem-Study Framework
CITYgreen is an example of place-based inquiry that combines three of the five place-based education program components, according to Smith (1999). Students investigate their environment using mathematics and science to solve real world problems and participate in and make recommendations to policy makers. CITYgreen incorporates all of the steps of the Problem-Study framework as the learner defines, generates, and studies their thinking and learning.
Define: Part 1
During the first phase, the curriculum focuses the student around a “big idea” or overall problem question. In this case the overall question is, “How and what do trees provide for us?” Students then become investigators as they think about, observe, and consider the facts around the overall question. Students use ArcView 3.3 (Environmental Systems Research Institute, 1986) to investigate population in general and hypothesize some of the effect increases or decreases that population might have on the environment using their personal experiences. As students observe their own campus, they will begin to draw relationships between trees and other components of the environment, such as water quality, air quality, and temperature. Students brainstorm and generate as many of their own questions and predict possible solutions. Students who have never thought about trees this way before become curious about the relationship of trees to the other components of the environment.
Generate: Parts 2 - 6
As students learn about the relationships of trees to the environment and their communities, they continually revisit their questions and possible solutions and refine them. Students experience a combination of hands-on experiences or outside procedure, discussions, readings, lectures, and computer-based investigations called inside procedure, and modeling scenarios. The combination of direct experience and computer-based investigations gives students an opportunity to explore multiple relationships at many different scales. During this phase, experts or other primary sources are often used by schools to help with the data acquisition and problem analysis. Urban foresters, city planners, and GIS specialists oftentimes assist schools, creating an ongoing partnership with the community.
Study: Parts 7 and 8
In the third phase, students create maps of their group-based questions using the CITYgreen models and present their findings to their peers. Students apply their new understandings and ideas through presentations, discussions, and community action through the partnerships they have previously established. Using science notebooks or journals, students write what they have learned and how they learned it. To do this, students are asked to think about their own thinking processes or the steps in Problem-Study. First, they describe what they did and how. Then they evaluate the process by answering the following questions: “Was this an effective way to think about this and why or why not?” and “If not, how could you improve this process?” Finally students are asked to describe when and how they would use this process again in the future. Students are evaluating the process that they just used to construct their new understandings.
Using CITYgreen and the Problem-Study Framework
An in-depth study was conducted of one middle school teacher and his students (n=33) in which they used CITYgreen to conduct an urban ecological analysis of their school grounds over a 9 week period. The teacher and students were interviewed and the student projects and presentations were analyzed. The students could easily explain how to measure trees and their relationship to the environment. In addition, students could correctly answer questions on how the CITYgreen program worked and what it helped them to accomplish. All of the students completed an analysis using their own problem questions which they formulated based on their school campus CITYgreen project (see Table 3).
Table 3 Student CITYgreen Analyses
Problem Question |
Conclusion |
What would happen if all the Bradford Pear trees at Carrington were replaced with Red Oak and Southern Magnolia trees? |
The dominant tree on campus would become a red oak tree, which would improve wildlife benefits but carbon benefits, pollution removal benefits, and energy benefits would remain the same. |
What would happen if the impervious surfaces increased by 70% and the trees decreased by 10%? |
The carbon storage, pollution removal benefits and stormwater benefits decreased. If you want to make changes to the environment, you should consider the environment first. |
How would the trees, carbon benefits, pollution removal benefits, stormwater runoff, and energy savings change if the study area were redrawn to include only the digitized area around the school? |
The bare area decreased because we eliminated the bus lot. Stormwater benefits increased as a result. More trees should be planted around the school. |
What would happen if 100%, 50%, and 25% of ourtrees died? |
The air would not be as clean with fewer trees. We need to plant the trees we cut down due to building expansion. |
What would happen if impervious surfaces increasedby 75% and water by 50%? |
The stormwater benefits and pollution benefits decreased. We suggest that impervious surfaces be limited at Carrington. |
What would Carrington be like without trailers and instead there were trees? |
More trees would save Carrington over $500 per year in carbon and air pollution benefits. A few trees make a big difference. |
What would happen if 50% of the trees were cut down or destroyed? |
Carbon storage was lower and runoff increased.This would contribute to global warming. There would be less food for wildlife. |
What would happen if water increased by 2% and trees decreased by 50% |
If water increases then there are fewer trees. There is a decrease in the tree savings and overall energy benefits. The number of species of trees also decreased. |
When interviewed, students overall said that they thought using CITYgreen was interesting and very different from what they would normally do in science class. For
example, Tony said, "It is cool and you are going to get to use the computer." Students said that they enjoyed going outside (50%), being on the computer and plotting things (30%), collecting the data (15%), and formulating an individual problem question (5%). Jacinta said, "The GIS part of it was cool and I liked making maps on the computer." According to students, CITYgreen unit was different from what they normally did in science class because they: went outside, used the computer, did more mathematics, and worked longer and more in-depth.
Zach summarized the difference by stating, "Everybody was doing a different project and
there was no book to follow." Emma said, "It was not just reading out of the book, you actually got to go outside and do it." Their teacher agreed, and he felt that the students became more aware of how to collect and analyze data. The teacher said that, “…not only have their computer skills improved but their total awareness of the environment. It was new to them.”
Students were able to explain many patterns that they noticed from the projects. Students noticed that they had a lot of Bradford Pears near their school and that they were all approximately the same height. Brittany said, "They do not provide good wildlife benefit. They basically were planted for decoration because they have flowers on them." Students were surprised by how many trees and how many different kinds of trees there were on their campus. During the project, a million dollar school renovation and expansion project was in progress. Students began to think about the effects of the new construction. They realized from CITYgreen that fewer trees would mean decreased pollution benefits and fewer places for animals to live. They also realized the importance of larger trees and replacing trees that had been eliminated as the result of the construction. Carl said, "The more trees and the less buildings the more benefits you have. The more trees the less runoff there was.”
At the conclusion of the CITYgreen unit, all students interviewed reported that they could easily ask more problem questions and were able to explain possible ways of solving them. Using Problem-Study, the students were able to identify and explain how they would solve future problems. Understanding how to solve problems will help students develop process skills, which they can transfer to other situations.
Reflections on the Problem-Study Framework
The students learned about the environment and how to use it to analyze data using CITYgreen. CITYgreen allows for "what if" questions associated with models that can show change over time (McGarigal & Romme, 2003). Audet and Abegg (1996) found that a gradual passage through several identifiable intermediate stages of procedural knowledge was important when using GIS to solve problems. The CITYgreen unit using the Problem-Study framework is an example of a classroom application that addresses how to identify stages as students proceed from a lower level to a higher level of abstraction. The findings of this study also indicate that students benefit from an interactive and exploratory environment. Students enjoyed the balance between "inside work" and "outside work." This helped to motivate the data entry and students understood the connection between the environmental data they were collecting and its representation on the computer. If they had questions about their data, they could go outside and double check their findings. The teacher guides the students through the process using the three phases of definition, generation, and study. As the students proceed through the process, the teacher can assess the students’ proficiency at each of the three phases. In this case, during the definition stage, the students created lists of ideas and discussed the possible solutions using graphic organizers provided by the teacher. During the generation phase, the students used primary and secondary sources to answer their own questions and collected and visualized data. Their projects assessed their understanding of the relationship between trees and the environment. During the final phase, study, the students applied their solutions to consider how this might affect their school. They wrote reflections and discussed possible actions that they might consider. Therefore, the Problem-Study framework, guides instruction and evaluation as students’ learn content.
Selected Examples of Using CITYgreen in the Classroom
CITYgreen has been an excellent resource for some as an introduction to GIS and lessons in environmental science, social studies, math, and geography. Lyn Malone who had taught in public schools for 32 years as a social studies teacher recognized the advantages of using GIS in the classroom. In 2000, she and a colleague launched Project One, Two, Tree in response to a Rhode Island initiative that required every town to include an urban forestry component in its comprehensive plan. Malone thought it would be a great community service for the students to create a tree database that the town could expand. They piloted the project in their town of Barrington, where 80 students learned about urban forestry. Students used CITYgreen to create an inventory of their middle school’s 217 trees, analyzed the range of species, and documented their condition. During the next year, Malone trained middle and high school teachers from ten towns to conduct similar classes.
Drew Swierczek is in his first year of teaching at McKinley Technology High School in Washington, DC. McKinley is a newly reopened inner city school focused on providing technology skills applicable to an array of careers. Swierczek, who was charged with developing Community as Laboratory, an elective that uses CITYgreen software to teach students GIS and the environmental benefits of urban trees.
Swierczek had never heard of GIS prior to joining McKinley. Subsequently, he used the CITYgreen manual to teach himself the basics of GIS. He then incorporated the CITYgreen lesson plans and created an atmosphere where both he and the students learned from each other as they learned more about CITYgreen. After learning GIS and CITYgreen, the freshmen and sophomores conducted a tree inventory of their schoolyard and ran alternative scenarios for various planting schemes. Swierczek plans to move out of the schoolyard to adjoining neighborhoods to inventory trees next year. He also envisions teaching a social studies course using GIS applications to analyze how a city park divides the city economically.
The success stories mentioned are just two in a list that is growing rapidly. In the four years that the CITYgreen workshops have been conducted, there has been a very positive reaction from students, teachers, and school administrators. CITYgreen is helping teachers and administrators bring technology into the classroom to educate students not only in core academic subjects but also in the importance of conservation in their communities. The program supports the mission of growing a healthier world with trees through school and student participation. Many states in the country (e.g., Texas, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Missouri, Florida, and Georgia) have been involved in this endeavor.
Conclusion
Students benefit from an interactive and exploratory environment. It is essential that curricula are designed such that students can learn content and process at the same time. The Problem-Study framework provides guidelines for learning, instructional design, and assessment. Based on research, it includes a “learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered” environment for learning. When incorporating technologies such as GIS in the classroom, it is essential that gradual passage through several identifiable intermediate stages of knowledge be identified. The Problem-Study framework identifies these stages and offers suggestions for assessment of learning, design of the instruction, and evaluation of the curriculum. Using GIS allows a new dimension to learning as students are able to easily explore, analyze, and predict solutions to multiple problems. It can enhance student learning when approached in a manner that supports good instruction. The Problem-Study framework has the potential to offer such support in the classroom.
