Institute for Technology Development

My Big Realization about Community Mapping

By Amanda Gierow
Geography and Social Studies Teacher
Denver , Colorado

Two students (one in middle school, the other in high school) were very disengaged from school and decided to team up to do their final Urban Geography project on graffiti in the school neighborhood. One of these students was a known "graf" artist and had "tagged" many chairs and tables in the school building. After surveying the neighborhood for graffiti, I asked if they might interview a store owner who had been very upset by a recent tagging of his store. The students reluctantly agreed, but the graf artist was concerned that the owner was just a "hater" or a person who did not appreciate artistic youth expressions. I reminded them that like in our CM project, they were going to the interview as impartial observers. They were to go find out his opinion, write it down and move on. They decided that they could do that.

The store owner and I had already spoken and I had set up the interview. I let him know that the students were coming to ask him a few questions and then they were to report back. I could have never expected what happened. Because the boys were impartial with their questions. it opened up an opportunity for the three to speak freely. After the store owner gave his opinion, one of the graf artists expressed his opinion and admitted to tagging many of the areas around the school. While the tagging problem was not solved--both sides were at least able to hear each other out in a calm way. When the boys returned to the classroom they had a lot of positive things to say about the store owner, including that they better understood why he was so upset about the tagging. The store owner also called me and commented on how friendly and professional the boys had been. He explained the whole conversation and appreciated the student's honestly regarding tagging. (These are two boys that have been repeatedly in trouble for smoking, skipping and tagging.)

Previously, I was disappointed about the results from my Community Mapping project because I ran out of time in the computer lab with my students. But what I realized in this experience is that what students learned from the Community Mapping Program goes way beyond GIS or geographical analysis. Because we had practiced being impartial observers in our project, I believe they were able to see graffiti as an issue with two sides. I was also able to trust them to go to the interview by themselves again, because we had practiced observation and interviewing skills as part of our project. So the best impact of the project was one that I knew could happen, but never at the level it actually occurred.. This project helped to create and repair community bonds around our school. How do you measure this?