Junior high studies GPS technology

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

With 14 global positioning system units in hand, environmental education students at Cache La Poudre Junior High School scurried along the banks of the Poudre River to collect data about the river and its habitat.

Then in the classroom, they analyzed their numbers and observations to compile maps using geographic information system software.

"The habitat is healthy," concluded eighth grader Cammi Barrie. "There's a lot of vegetation and not much trash."

"We like to keep them up on what technology is available, how it's being used and who's using it," said teacher Ted Garfield, who has been at CLPJH for 28 years. "They're capable of doing some really tremendous things with technology as we give them the opportunity to excel."

In this case, 12 GPS units, mapping software and two digital cameras were purchased with a $3,980 grant from the Poudre School District Foundation. Two other GPS units were funded with an environmental grant from Wal-Mart. The equipment will serve students for years to come, and the outdoor laboratory is a gift of nature easily accessed by the new segment of the Pleasant Valley Trail behind the school.

Students worked in teams, collecting data from eight to 15 points along the river. The team of Dustin Goodyear, Colt Miller and Tim Ford, all eighth graders, found the diversion dam on the Poudre to be the most interesting. Using the data was confusing at first, they agreed, but then they "got the hang of it."

In addition to water diversions, the students recorded incoming water sources and observed how both changed the flow of the river. They looked for bank erosion, trash, log jams and stagnant water. They observed nests in riparian areas. Biology students from another class went along to collect water samples. Other students used the digital cameras to record the action at the data collection points.

Back at school, they translated their GPS data into numbers for longitude and latitude, starting at Overland Trail and moving west, and then paired their observations with precise points of a map of the river. Garfield plans to save the data from year to year so that future classes can analyze long-term changes.

The teacher noted that 70 to 80 percent of businesses now use GIS in some form. While most professions don't need to understand all the work that went into making the GIS maps, Garfield said he wanted his students to start from the beginning.

"They need to know that data entry is very tedious," he said.

Of course, a sunny day in May along the banks of the Poudre River isn't all that bad.