by Stephanie Long, M.Sc., Geographic Information Systems Professional, Professor and Department Chair, Geographic Information Systems

As a professor of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), it is common for students and I to discuss global topics.  However, my experience with the Global Education Faculty Learning Community (FLC) will allow me to confidently dive deeper into these topics with students and add even more global topics across the curriculum.

The faculty of the Global Education FLC met regularly, covering topics such as women rappers, food and housing insecurities, and the crisis in Ukraine.  The variety of topics and the dynamic guest speakers led to great discussions among faculty members from Austin Community College (ACC), the University of Texas at Austin, the City University of New York, and more.  This was a valuable, collaborative learning experience that will continue to benefit me – and in turn the students – for years to come.

In order to automate tedious tasks, GIS professionals utilize the Python programming language to automate workflows in the GIS map-making software.  In the Programming for GIS class taught at ACC, students are presented with a project assessment wherein they create a 3D scene of Ocean Health Index (OHI) goals and develop a map book for Earth’s 7 continents.  The Ocean Health Index (‘OHI’) is used to measure how healthy the oceans of our world are by evaluating current conditions such as social, economic, and environmental states. Understanding the state of our oceans is an important step to continue providing humans benefits now and in the future.  There are 220 coastal nations and territories that have been assessed since 2012 and a current index of assessments can be seen on the global map here.

“The Earth’s oceans provide over 500 million jobs, a primary source of protein for over 1 billion people, and coastal habitats save billions of dollars each year from protection against storms.” (Source).  The index created consists of ten diverse goals: food provision, artisanal fishing opportunities, natural products, carbon storage, coastal protection, sense of place, livelihoods and economies, tourism and recreation, clean waters, and biodiversity.  These goals assess coasts for their current state, for example, the amount of seafood sustainably harvested or the ability of coastal habitats to remove carbon.

The project instructions are delivered to students in the form of a Statement of Work (SOW) document that has detailed instructions to guide the students in exploring the terminology of OHI and becoming familiar with the goals and subgoals.  Students also read the story map “Healing our Oceans with Data” to learn more about the data they are going to use in this project.  Instructions for summary tasks are provided for each topic of the course, progressing with the course lectures and exercises.  Those instructions also include screenshots of how to complete the work in the software and provide students with sample Python scripts to kick things off.  The result is a series of maps where students describe OHI to their audience in their own words and present the results of their analyses on a 3D global map (Figure 1).

Something I learned during my summative presentation to the FLC was that asking pointed questions of the students before they conduct too much research of their own, enables them to discover their own biases in their global perspectives.  Where the Global Education FLC stepped in to make this project even more engaging for students was the idea to have students then explore data trends for various coastal nations and territories at their own pace and then learn from each other through open discussions.  Thanks to the Global Education FLC, I now have the confidence I need to introduce a new globally themed project to the GIS program here at ACC on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  As a result of my participation in this faculty learning community, I have built a network of ACC faculty who are not only interested in that same topic but who are even interested in collaborating between departments on a student project.  I would encourage any faculty member contemplating joining a Faculty Learning Community to dive right in!