A LANDSCAPE VIEW OF IRELAND: AN EXAMPLE OF PROJECT-BASED LEARNING USING GIS STORY MAP AS A REPORTING TOOL

In collaboration with the Irish Heritage School, we created a project-based learning experience in Ireland for a group of academically exceptional early college math and science students from Kansas. The learning experience included two weeks of homestays in a small midlands town, and a week of touring in the Galway region. The last week of the tour ended with visits to cultural sites around the Dublin area. We employed a landscape approach to investigating the Irish Midlands while focusing on both the natural and anthropogenic effects over the Holocene. Students were broken into three groups based on interests: Humans, Peat, and Streams. Daily field-based experiential learning activities occurred for the first two weeks. Examples include the collection and analysis of invertebrates for the indication of stream health, plant surveys along stream banks and in upland meadows, peat mine visits, a peat mining reclamation area visit, an organic farm visit, cultural site visits, and geology field investigations. Students were required to maintain a detailed field notebook throughout the course, and each student chose a topic related to the group’s main focus to expand upon in a Story Map visual presentation. Students were asked to report on the pros and cons of their experiences. They were also asked to report their thoughts on the use of Story Map as a reporting tool for this field-based research course. The homestay experience was highly valued by the students while the use of Story Map was less than optimal in the students’ opinions for this particular endeavor. The students’ opinions have been further evaluated in order to delve into the reasoning for the most prevalent pros and cons. Based on the results of the survey, potential alternatives for research projects and reporting tools are currently being investigated and considered for future project-based learning trips.