University of Maine GK-12 Sensors! Program benefits a local community

Since 2003, University of Maine (UM) GK-12 sensors! Fellows and Bangor High School (BHS) teachers and students have been addressing community issues for various agencies and organizations in the City of Bangor, Maine. Through GK-12 involvement a community need was identified by teachers, students and emergency service agencies for comprehensive maps of city resources and hazardous material sites to be used in emergency and disaster response planning. GK-12 Sensors! participants in partnership with Bangor Police and Fire Departments, Bangor Emergency Response Unit and Bangor International Airport, built a geographic information system (GIS) for emergency service providers and produced planning maps. These maps contained locations of all emergency shelters, hospitals, police and fire stations, as well as all known hazardous materials sites within city limits. Other identified community-needs projects included spatial analysis of the incidence of OUI arrests. These activities led to the development of a GIS course at BHS in 2006, one of only a few GIS courses in the U.S. aimed specifically at high school students. Since that time, GK 12 Fellows have assisted students and teachers in other projects based on identified community needs such as spatial analysis of the incidence of teen driving accidents in Bangor and detection of spatial patterns of burglaries for the Bangor Police Department. Currently, students are involved in projects to document burial patterns of a 19th century Irish cemetery using Ground Penetrating Radar and creating walking tour maps of historic ethnic neighborhoods for the Bangor Museum and Center for History and the Bangor Daily News. These highly visible partnerships and resultant products, which raise community and parental awareness of GK-12 Sensors! activities at BHS, may serve to increase interest and support of STEM career pursuits for students.