Students and teachers in Minnesota are using ArcView GIS to learn about the nesting habits of the bald eagle. The project represents an effective way to use a new scientific and government databases for educational use.
Students use real-world data to solve authentic questions.
Their analyses and responses are evaluated by researchers and become part of the real-world ongoing study of the bald eagle, an endangered species. The Institute was a four-day, intensive course for middle and high school science teachers held in Voyageurs National Park, on the Canadian border in northern Minnesota, in July 1997. A VNP visitors classroom was turned into a computer lab with PCs loaned by the International Falls, Minnesota, School District. Most of the teachers had never used GIS prior to the workshop. The training dealt with file management, digitized data sources, projections, scale, legend editing, and databases.