A GIS Interface for Learning Math through Social Justice Inquiry

Kathleen Tully & Gouravjeet Singh

GIS

Inspired by Gutstein’s work with urban, latino middle school students (Gutstein, 2003)

● Concrete, real world problems● Students develop:

○ Math skills○ Social justice agency

GIS

What do students need to become active agents of social justice?

Awareness

● Draw correlations ● Discover complexity of the issues

Ownership

● Local, neighborhood level data● Issues affecting students’ own families or

lives● Freedom to draw own conclusions

Skills

● Develop mathematical thought● Data analysis● Cyber/media literacy

Development of GIS

First Try

Tried working with open source project Ushahidi

Redesign Plan

● From the ground up● Integrated with existing community site● Look at existing GIS web applications

Public Data

Sources: google.com/publicdata, socialexplorer.com, nationalatlas.gov, fractracker.org, scorecard.goodguide.com, feedingamerica.org

Challenges

● Size limits of polygons● Differing APIs● Speed concerns● Scalability● Reliability of data sets

Technology

● Front-end: Google Map + Javascript’s Angular Framework

● Back-end: Python Django

● Database: PostgreSQL

Data Sets

● Farmers’ Markets● Retail Food Stores● Restaurants● Census

○ Median household income○ Population density○ Racial makeup

Features and Functionalities

Features:● Plotting data sets● Different layers● Tagging● Charts view

Layers

● Search Option

● Layers

Plotting Data Sets

● Different data sets will compare the growth/prosperity of neighbourhood.

Tagging

● Tagging using markers

● Grocery stores, Restaurants

Charts

Visualization will help in:● Comparing different

neighborhoods● Interpreting multiple

data sets

Primary Use-cases

● Students specify a geographic area.● Students are offered a drop-down list of data

sources.● Students can visually compare more than

one data set ● Students can get a quantitative read out

Goals for the summer

● Finish code rewrite for following features (and testing)○ Plotting data sets○ Tagging○ Layers

● Upload to Github

References

E. Gutstein, “Teaching and Learning Math. for Social Justice in an Urban, Latino School,” JRME, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 37-73, Jan, 2003.

Acknowledgement

● Professor Ron Eglash● Professor Moorthy● Professor Abby Kinchy● CSDT Developers● Triple Helix

Questions?