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ABSTRACT
The City of Phoenix has a variety of youth oriented programs whose goal is to encourage youth to become involved in community issues. AuThenTiCity is a program the tries to bring local GIS into the classroom. Students and teachers through a service learning approach learn about their community, identify problems within in their local community and begin working on solutions.
The City of Phoenix, Arizona, has made significant effort to engage its youth community learning and involvement. The City has created a variety of programs for youth involvement. This includes:
- Creation of an Education Office in the City Manager's Office to work with youth programs and local school districts. Phoenix has 26 separate school districts within the corporate limits of the City.
- Development, distribution and support for a booklet about local government, "Phoenix Is Your City", which is used as classroom tool to teach local youth about government of their "home".
- Annually as part of its budget approval process, the City sponsors Youth Budget Forums to engage youth in discussions about the proposed City budget. This forum frequently develops recommendations for changes to the proposed budget which are given equal consideration with all other public comment on the budget. The forum has created a lobby group among youth that have successfully lobbied for changes to the budget to better meet youth needs and programs.
- Annually the City sponsors a Youth Town Hall to engage youth in discussion about current local issues that have impact on their lives and families.
- The City has a Youth and Education Commission appointed by the City Council to advise them on issues related to youth needs and programs. This commission has two voting positions, appointed by City Council, that are reserved for local youth.
- The City has created a GIS system, PEYS - Phoenix Education and Youth System, to provide geographic information about schools and youth demographics to City Departments, and local school districts.
In 1997, in partnership with AT & T Coporation and ESRI, the City of Phoenix created a program to involve youth in community problem solving. The program, AuThenTiCITY, supplies educators with a classroom curriculum and ArcView training. The mission of AuThenTiCITY is to engage youth in a service learning experience that combines community service with learning and reflection. Students learn about their community through exploration. They identify issues and ways they can serve the community to address these issues. Then students reflect on their service and experience. AuThenTiCITY integrates mapping skills with service learning and in so doing involves youth in “authentic” community problem solving.
AuThenTiCITY was Initiated in 1997 with a $75,000 AT&T Grant to fund training. AT&T also funded the creation of a computer lab in a local elementary school. Assistance has been provide by ESRI from the beginning and ESRI provides a low cost software offer to educators and schools participating in the program. The program currently has three components, training, a curriculum, and outreach. The heart of the program is a curriculum created by City of Phoenix, local educators, Constitutional Rights Foundation and ESRI.
The curriculum is structured for Elementary, Middle and High Schools. It consists of 16 Lessons centered around three major steps, Community Awareness/Discovery, Community Research, and Community Action. Community Discovery is the first step. It essentially consists of exercises the help youth defining their community. They develop a mental map of their community and define the physical boundaries of their community. Once they have "mapped" their community, then they begin to describe the community and begin to identify the issues in their community.
Community Research is the second step. In this step students develop a research problem (community issue) and a hypotheses about the problem. They then engage in research learning the basics of building a database and collecting data. Students learn the basics of ArcView and then use City data layers to explore their problem within their community. The curriculum is based in part on ESRI's book Getting to Know ArcVierw GIS. These lessons involve the use of data about the student's community so it is familiar to them. Once students learn basic GIS skills, the lessons have them use the GIS tools and available community data to analyze their own problem.
Community Action is the final step. Students examine their research and propose action steps to resolve the problem. They review their findings with community members. They then work with the community to try and solve their community problem. Finally they take time to celebrate their new knowledge about their community.
AuThenTiCITY also includes a training program. The program, jointly developed with ESRI consists of 3 days of training. The class is free to local educators and community leaders. It includes curriculum notebook, a local data CD, ArcVoyager software, follow-up assistance from the City and a special Arcview Site License that allows schools for ESRI basic education license fee use multiple copies of ArcView on site and to allow the school educators to take a copy of ArcView home to use on their personal computers. To date over 140 people have been trained, roughly consisting of:
- 70 Elementary Educators
- 20 Middle and High School Educators
- Non-Profit Youth Agencies
- City Staff working with youth
- School District Planners
The City is just know beginning its outreach efforts, and is designing this based on the lessons learned so far. So far the results of the program have not been what was expected when it was first started. Though a lot of people have been trained and provided the curriculum, there has been only very limited integration into curriculum of a few schools. No teachers have engaged a class in what could fully be called a "service learning" experience. However, there have been individual student successes. Several students attended training with their teachers and have gone on to paid positions using their ArcView skills. Several local School District planners were trained and are now using ArcView in their school capital needs planning. Several community leaders and staff from local non-profits involved in youth issues were trained and are now using ArcView to analyze City data related to their local issues and needs.
The City has learned some things as well. First we learned that we need a shorter Orientation Session as opposed to the 3 day class. Some people took the 3 day class but were overwhelmed and later repeated the class. We also learned that people need to have made arrangements to have access to ArcView before the take the training, so the can quickly begin using it and reinforcing what they learned. We have also learned that teaching GIS skills and integrating the curriculum is more difficult than we thought. It is not a case of "build it and they will come". They are actually two separate steps and that integration requires us listening to what teachers need after they have been trained.
Building on what we have learned the City has initiated an outreach effort. The City has hired full time person to work with authenticity. Up until now the program was staffed through part time efforts of people with already full plates. We have listened to some of the educators that have been through the program, and now better understand the role state standards play in the classroom. We are now creating a guide to show how the curriculum can be used to meet Arizona state geography standards. We are also going to try and use the "trained" teachers to assist in curriculum integration. We also recognize that opportunities for engaging youth in real community issues are rare, and will try and better integrate the curriculum with other City youth programs.
AuThenTiCITY is available free to educators in the Phoenix Metroplex. The City has also created a national edition that includes national data sets on CD with ArcVoyager, which is available for $50. For more information about the program you can contact Deborah Dillion at ddillon@ci.phoenix.az.us or Remy Autz at rautz@ci.phoenix.az.us or visit the City's web site at www.phoenix.gov
Ray Quay is the Assistant Director of Planning for the City of Phoenix. Deborah Dillon is the City of Phoenix Education Program Director in the City Manager's office. Remy Autz is a GIS manager in the Education Program.
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