In the Community Research module, students are transitioning from their conceptual study and preliminary fact-finding about their community to a hands-on community research project. In Module 1, they have defined their community in some geographic sense and have begun isolating an issue or issues that they wish to investigate in greater depth. In Module 2,

• They will refine that issue or those issues into a research question or hypothesis.
• Once defined they will design a field strategy, gather data, and create one (possibly more) geographic databases that aid in addressing their research. In this process, they will be faced with real-world issues surrounding data collection, fieldwork, and data construction.
• With those items complete or underway, they will enhance their computer, spatial, and critical thinking skills and learn about their home and literally its place in the world.
• To do this, they will work with a geographic information system (GIS), specifically ArcView GIS (a tool in extensive use by local governments and others for planning, research, and decision making).
• Familiar with ArcView and other components, they will begin mapping out the data they have collected/created to visualize and analyze their research problem geographically. In this process, they will be able to design their own maps, add their own data to other layers about various aspects of their community, ask and answer geographic questions, and print or export map images of their work, among other things.

Lessons in this section include:

• Lesson 5- Defining our research: Hypotheses, hunches, and exploratory questions
• Lesson 6—Building the puzzle pieces: Collecting data and building databases
• Lesson 7—Learning to map the pieces: Getting started with ArcView GIS
• Lesson 8—Getting our community and us on the map: What we see and what it means

ŠESRI Inc. 1999

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