What a great use of mobile technology to support the learning of both students and educators. Are the tools you have developed being used in just formal classrooms? Have they been tested in settings outside of the classroom? 

Hi Jackie! Yes, we are using these activities with youth-serving programs, too!

Hi Everyone. Thank you for checking-out our video. If you would like more information, please visit our website http://www.education.uw.edu/mcs/. Leave your thoughts and feedback here, too. Mobile City Science is a new project, with two implementations in Chicago and New York just completed and underway, respectively. Our aim is to provide young people with a systematic, digitally mediated inquiry process of de-coding their cities for building data-driven recommendations for urban change. To do this work, we rely on mobile, wearable, and geo-locative technologies and youth mobility within their neighborhoods and school communities. Youth are learning digital and spatial literacies that are increasingly important for participation in scientific disciplines and for understanding popular media. We are still refining a mobile tool that allows young people to not only engage in mobile mapping activities but also provide geo-located input that professionals can consider when developing plans for safe routes to schools, food accessibility, and placement of cultural and community amenities.

Hi Jackie,

Thanks for this great question! The technologies and tools are really central to Mobile City Science and how young people engage in the project. For example, in a recent Historical Walking Tour of Corona Queens, high school students used Garmin GPS devices to track their pathways around Flushing Meadows Park and the surrounding neighborhood. This is a novel, local iteration of an MCS activity we call Historic Geocaching. Prior to embarking on their walk, they had identified maps of different eras and discussed how they showed different things about these places. By mobilizing the tools and technologies (literally, they took this learning activity and made it mobile!) they discussed on-site at locations like the park and a historic church how the neighborhood was continuing to change and what that meant from a youth perspective. 

Facilitating connections between young people and their neighborhoods is a meaningful and worthwhile endeavor for all who are involved in this project. And, Mobile City Science is a program that is continuing to expand. We're proud of the work being done across communities, and we're excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. Thanks to all the visitors who are taking the time to view our video. 

Hi Katie and colleagues!

I love this project and am happy to know it's in my neighborhood (Queens) as well at Seattle. I also think this video was very creatively produced--a great example of making the most of your medium. Deborah provides an example above of how this technology can be used for educational purposes, to teach about the history of an area. Are you or your NYSCI partners thinking of using this approach to help students use these experience to forward a real world interest or goal they have? For example, collecting data about a derelict lot so they could present a case to a local community board to get it cleaned up or turned into a garden or park?

 Hi Wendy,

My name is Anthony Negron and I am the Manager of Digital Programming at The New York Hall of Science (NYSCI). We are currently working with a cohort of high school students that are using these tools and other ways of collecting data to explore their community. It is very exciting to see them be amaze in discovering assets in their community that they had never seen before and also question why certain assets don't exist in their neighborhood. Our students are currently developing their solutions and presentations to be made in front of their families and community panel in early June. 

Our team at the Digital Youth Network in Chicago facilitated the MCS project with a group of high school students in a south Chicago neighborhood. In learning about tools, collecting data, and walking their community, these kids came up with their own questions, challenges, issues they wanted to raise and discuss. For these ninth graders, the lack of available jobs for high schoolers was a theme they wanted to explore, as well as presenting what they cared about in a way that challenged existing narratives of where they live and go to school. Presentations to school and community representatives were really powerful.

This is an interesting project. I have 2 questions: What is Mobile City Science (I know, I should Google it, but I thought you may want to frame it for us), and do you have evidence so far on how participation and engagement benefits the kids?  Clearly they learn about their neighborhood, and they learn to do certain things, but are you aiming at some broader concepts?  You mentioned digital and spatial literacies, but I wonder whether you could expand on that.