[Teachosm] TeachOSM High School in Massachusetts

[Shawn Goulet]

Hi All,

I am currently a GIS Analyst/Developer at a regional planning agency in
Massachusetts.  My position's role is to support our internal staff and the
municipalities within our region (Barnstable County a.k.a. Cape Cod)
incorporating geospatial data solutions into their initiatives and projects
in respect to land use planning efforts.

For the past 2 years, I've been working with a high school AP Human
Geography teacher and her students in Massachusetts (Barnstable High
School's Social Studies Department
<http://www.barnstable.k12.ma.us/Page/307>) to integrate OSM mapping into
their curriculum.  Over the past year, I've been working with a high school
senior that went through the high school AP Human Geography program at
another high school (Mashpee High School's AP Human Geography program
<http://www.mashpee.k12.ma.us/webpages/creynolds/ap.cfm>) in an effort to
plan for the integration of OSM mapping in their curriculum.

>From my perspective, I see the OSM as possibly being an extremely valuable
tool that can be updated by the masses to maintain up-to-date datasets for
all to leverage through geospatial products and issues we face.  I also see
it as a very valuable tool to educate students using geospatial data.  In
my role, the onus that myself and others in our department have shared is
then shared with the masses.  As such, to some extent, the responsibility
to maintain these datasets and the time and resources needed to accomplish
the data management to maintain constant up-to-date data is alleviated.

I understand that some individuals believe that students editing the OSM
can be dangerous.  However, I was never was made aware of OSM even existing
until not long ago.  I see the opportunity for students who live in the
communities and utilize many of their civic services and institutions as a
uniquely valuable resource.  To me, their contributions are highly valuable
and, in turn, their experience through constructive contributions to the
OSM is highly valuable to their educational experience.

I want to share with you and make you aware of the major obstacles that we
have faced over the past 2 years.

*1)  OSM isn't part of the curriculum*
This obstacle begins with actually getting teachers interested in the
concept of having their students contribute to the OSM.  Since OSM editing
isn't part of the AP Human Geography curriculum, the teachers need to
understand the value in it for their students.  They need to teach to the
curriculum and OSM not being a component becomes the first obstacle.  What
we have been doing is a) assigning grids of their municipalities to the
students and having the students edit within those grids and b) tying
different OSM map features into the different sections of the curriculum
(e.g. for the Population and Migration section, map features tied to
hospitals, educational facilities, medical facilities, funeral homes,
hostels, etc.).

*2)  Learning how to edit the OSM*
This obstacle stems from teachers being interested in the possibility of
integrating OSM editing into their lesson plans.  I was initially given the
opportunity to present my plan to the entire Social Studies Department of
the Barnstable Public School system (approximately 15 teachers at the time)
and only 1 was actually interested.  I was lucky enough that her interest
did not stop there.  She has actually allowed me to work with her and her
students in doing this.  Her openness to learning how to edit OSM and
offering me time out of her lesson plans to teach the students how to edit
is the only reason why I have been able to work with them.  Hopefully next
year I will be able to say the same for the Mashpee program.

*3)  Coordinating schedules*
The AP curriculum is content rich and time consuming.  I also take time out
of my schedule to dedicate to meeting with the students, getting them up
and running and working with them through questions and obstacles they
encounter.  In addition, issues out of our hands such as what we faced this
past winter in New England with snow storms resulting in numerous school
cancellations has delayed meetings.  As a result, we have not met since
December and will not be able to meet until early June once the their AP
sections have completed.  This has resulted in a *HUGE* negative impact on
momentum.  I will have to re-teach many things come June.  There is no
incentive for the teacher to meet as they are playing catch-up because of
the classroom time they lost throughout the winter.

*4)  OSM is not part of the STEM initiative (or any educational initiative)
that I know of*
Should it be part of the STEM initiative?  I do not know, but it seems like
it would not be a huge stretch.  If it were part of any educational
initiative, it would make integrating it into U.S. K-12 education *MUCH*
easier.  If high school students' contributions to the OSM in the U.S. is
deemed valuable, in my opinion we *NEED* to start the discussions
surrounding incorporation of it within the frameworks of U.S. education.

*5)  Support from the OSM community*
Does the community deem contribution from secondary education students
valuable?  If so, what kinds of support for such movements are there/could
there be?  Scholarships?  TeachOSM programs for educators?  OSM editing
jump starts for students?  An organized effort that produces positive OSM
contributions from teachers and students would be very valuable for people
like myself.  I/we cannot do this alone - the time and energy commitment is
a lot to handle alone.

Thanks for your time in reading this if you have made it this far!
Hopefully I have convinced you that I care about this.  I would love to
hear from others that may be in similar situations and what obstacles you
may be facing and see if we identify and begin the necessary dialogues to
incorporate OSM contributions into U.S. education.  I will be giving a talk
at the State of the Map U.S. conference this topic if you happen to be
going, would love to connect with you there:
http://stateofthemap.us/gis-smorgasbord/ or at any TeachOSM gatherings at
SOTMUS.

Cheers,
Shawn

*Shawn Goulet*
*Twitter:* @Shawn_Goulet <http://twitter.com/shawn_goulet>
*LinkedIn:* www.linkedin.com/in/ShawnGoulet
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