The Citizen Science Geographic Information Systems (GIS) team at UCF spent long days trekking through shoreline mud and sweating in coastal heat this past summer 麻豆精品 S� and they couldn 麻豆精品 S檛 have been happier about it.
The return to fieldwork follows a pandemic pause on critical shoreline mapping, which the team attempted to continue with limited success through remote observations. Beginning in June 2021, Associate Professor of Sociology Timothy Hawthorne led his team back into the field. They started in Hopkins, a , and later in the summer work continued on another project in the Pacific Northwest.
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The work, which received renewed funding in 2021 from the U.S. National Science Foundation, focuses on mapping areas of the coast vulnerable to flooding using GIS and drones. The project emphasized hands-on training and teaching participants how to apply the technology and techniques. UCF students, community partners and K-12 teachers involved with the Citizen Science GIS NSF-funded Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) based at UCF joined the team in Belize. Hawthorne completed mapping with four partnering citizen scientists as well.
July took the team to the coast of the Pacific Northwest to advance a collaborative project with Smithsonian MarineGEO. The project, funded by a separate NSF grant, involves mapping of seagrass (also known as eelgrass) meadows with drones, which is expected to provide key insights into the health of marine life habitats.
Joining Hawthorne and postdoctoral research scholar Bo Yang on the trip to Washington was UCF student Tyler Copeland 麻豆精品 S�19 and local science teacher Andy Bula. Copeland, a second-year sociology student who earned a bachelor 麻豆精品 S檚 in environmental studies at UCF, served as the undergraduate lead in the eelgrass mapping project.
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This is the first time that Bula, who teaches at Titusville 麻豆精品 S檚 Astronaut High School, participated in fieldwork through UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 RET program.
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UCF is home to a 聽focused on GIS. The university also offers a
