- Anne Leonhardt
- Associate Professor
- The Cultural History of Digital Technologies
- New York City College of Technology
- Satyanand Singh
- https://www.citytech.cuny.edu/faculty/SSingh
- Associate Professor
- The Cultural History of Digital Technologies
- New York City College of Technology
Public Discussion
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Satyanand Singh
Associate Professor
We appreciate your interest in our presentation and we hope that you enjoy the journey into the realm of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and get a glimpse of some of the work we do with our students at New York City College of Technology.
We present work developed in a National Endowment of the Humanities grant titled The Cultural History of Digital Technologies, which uncovered and explored the roots, based in mathematical tools, underlying key current computer-based technologies.
In this presentation we explored Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and performed visual analyses over time as well as space of the spread of public health epidemics. The real-life project assignments, developed by the grant, highlight projective geometries and statistical analysis tools used in showing relative magnitude in both 2D and 3D maps.
In the project that focuses on the Coronavirus this semester the students develop the skills to begin producing their own citizen maps. This enhances our ability to monitor and identify the causes of diseases.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you for visiting our project. We would be very interesting in learning about your experiences with related projects, as well as your feedback on the following:
1) Do you feel you learned about the Covid-19's effects and spread?
2) Could you take things from this project and apply them to your teaching? What elements do you find useful?
Lucas Bernard
Great ideas and comprehensive video :-)
Lucas Bernard
Great ideas and comprehensive video :-)
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Lucas!
Xiaona Zhou
Very interesting. The concepts became easy to understand with examples related to COVID-19.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Xiaona, I'm glad you found the video illuminating for an understanding of the concepts behind geospatial analysis.
Gerald Singh
Excellent, was able to follow and obtain a basic understanding.
Gerald Singh
Excellent, was able to follow and obtain a basic understanding.
Anne Leonhardt
Anthony Gabb
Finding Patterns in Data: GIS Explorations of Pandemics, is a refreshing and timely study as we play catch-up with COVID-19---it should help us not only catch the virus but to get in front of and control it.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Anthony. I think this same feeling has worked to engage the students. The students' ability to visualize answers to the questions they're posing about COVID-19 is a powerful motivator.
Eric Rowland
Giving students opportunities to work with data and software is hugely important. These experiences make them better thinkers, and better thinkers make a better society.
Anne Leonhardt
Eric Rowland
Giving students opportunities to work with data and software is hugely important. These experiences make them better thinkers, and better thinkers make a better society.
Anne Leonhardt
Overtoun Jenda
Assistant Provost and Professor of Mathematics
This is very interesting. How were the students recruited? What was their major? And am also wondering about prerequisites for students to take on this interesting course/study.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Overtoun, thank you for your questions and comments! The main course we've designed the module for is an Interdisciplinary Course, A Cultural History of Digital Technologies, oriented towards students in the Technology and Design school at a wide range of levels. It has a Trigonometry/Algebra pre-requisite, and we cover the statistics needed within the unit and have developed a solid set of tutorials. GIS has also become increasingly easy to teach within the past four-five years as the tools have greatly evolved.
Jeffrey Ram
So very relevant. We hope that improved understanding of students about disease models and their influence on public policy will be generalized to other math model based science predictions, like (a) the transport of invasive species [actually the SARS-CoV-2 is just another very impactful invasive species, but will students now appreciate better the impact of invasive species when the "victims" are other organisms besides people? and (b) models for climate change. The math models for COVID-19 yielded accurate predictions (within a range of error, but clearly had an impacts even on some of the most resistant politicians). Can they now understand better how climate models are not just "made up" but are based on real data and reasonable mechanisms? Impacts of invasive species are parts of the education program we provide students at the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit. STEM for ALL Showcase video. At the lower grade levels at which we work, we are not using such sophisticated math models, but conceptual models such as food webs serve a similar purpose.
Michael I. Swart
Sasha Palmquist
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Jeffrey, you bring up a very interesting point! The past months have definitely opened up discussion and debate on the nature and fundamentals of models. Your program and the awareness it raises sound important.
Johanna Franklin
This is fantastic! This video provides a great introduction to GIS for people unfamiliar with it and gives new ideas about how to incorporate it into our classes to those of us who knew more before watching this.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you Johanna. We'd be happy to discuss further with you ways of incorporating material into your teaching.
David Seppala-Holtzman
This is an excellent video. It highlights, among other things, the various strands of mathematics that come together when real-world problem gets analyzed.
Anne Leonhardt
Ana Delgado
Excellent content. Not only does it give a valuable introduction into GIS and how it applies to Covid-19, it also demonstrates that when learning is relevant and rooted in conceptual/ historical understanding, it is more fulfilling for students and leads to increased progress.
Anne Leonhardt
Jeanne Reis
Director
This is a very timely and urgent topic. I've seen firsthand how student learning is impacted by application and deeper contextualization, and I appreciate the emphasis on study of real-world situations, multi-disciplinary faculty, and historical data.
How has participating in the project impacted the instructional design and approaches of your faculty? And what types of projects have the students done for this course?
Sasha Palmquist
Senior Manager of Community
I agree with Jeanne, this video and the work that you are doing is very timely. I would also like to know more about the kinds of projects students completed for this course. I was a poster session "judge" at CMU for a set of capstone projects using GIS and the opportunities for meaning making based on the visualizations were very compelling. Were the students this semester able to virtually present their work? If so, could some of it be shared?
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Jeanne! I think the project has led us to rethink our teaching a good deal. For me, first is in seeing the benefits and importance of getting to the most essential elements a subject, in this case the math and history, to give a fuller understanding of a technology like GIS. (and recognizing that this knowledge comes about through interdisciplinary exchanges). Second, we’ve found rewarding the solid student engagement in finding visual answers to the questions they identify as important. Particularly, with the COVID-19, I sense there will be many, many years’ worth of material to explore here in New York City.
Certain projects have explored per capita rates of infections or deaths in different geographic areas and tracked data over time. Others have looked at infection and testing rates over time, and a few have explored demographic data in relation to infection or death rates in the city.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Sasha. The visualization aspects and the possibilities for students to study neighborhoods they are connected with has definitely impacted the engagement with the work. The students we're working with this semester are presenting virtually. We'd be happy to share some of the work!
Renald Dambreville
Very comprehensive research using GIS.
Anne Leonhardt
Jennifer Ward
Wow, your research is SO timely. Do you have any resources to share that I can tell my intro statistics students about?
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Jennifer. We can definitely share some tutorials and readings for the project!
Kristin Flaming
It is great to hear that students are gaining access to internships and other enriching experiences through this program.
Anne Leonhardt
Nadia Benakli
Great video! Fantastic opportunity for students to learn about GIS.
Anne Leonhardt
Nadia Benakli
Great video! Fantastic opportunity for students to learn about GIS.
Nadia Benakli
Great video! Fantastic opportunity for students to learn about GIS.
Boyan Kostadinov
Finding Patterns in Data: GIS Explorations of Pandemics is a very timely STEM project that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration and this is something that we should all greatly encourage and support. In fact, as an applied mathematician, I would love to join their project and add to their contributions with more geospatial data analysis and GIS visualizations of the COVID-19 pandemic as I obtained an extensive dataset with geospatial COVID-19 data from around the world. They also make a great point in their video that it would serve a good pedagogical purpose to fully replicate the geospatial data analysis and create GIS visualizations of past epidemics and pandemics. One example of this could be the GIS analysis done by Dr. Snow during the cholera outbreak in London in 1854, which is mentioned in the video. I also have Dr. Snow’s original data and I would love to contribute to their project by replicating Dr. Snow’s GIS analysis using modern technologies.
Anne Leonhardt
Associate Professor
Thank you, Boyan! This sounds great. Let's be in touch to explore creating these visualizations! We were discussing some approaches and tools for this type of initiative very recently.
Nadia Kennedy
Excellent video showcasing a project, which approaches mathematization in a way that situates the research question in the history of ideas, and current social issues. Such an approach is extremely valuable as it widens the student horizon for important issues in the world, and for the interconnections of events and disciplines. Such projects can potentially reengage students and heighten their interest in STEM as they can show that STEM are relevant, and can help answer real-life questions in a powerful way. A wonderful project !
Anne Leonhardt
Nadia Kennedy
Excellent video showcasing a project, which approaches mathematization in a way that situates the research question in the history of ideas, and current social issues. Such an approach is extremely valuable as it widens the student horizon for important issues in the world, and for the interconnections of events and disciplines. Such projects can potentially reengage students and heighten their interest in STEM as they can show that STEM are relevant, and can help answer real-life questions in a powerful way. A wonderful project !
Allan Kaufman
Really nice to see a project based on current events.
Anne Leonhardt
johann ellner
Very creative, reverent and insightful. Great job.
Anne Leonhardt
Vevekeanand Ramnarace
Interesting and informative.
Michael I. Swart
A great and very apropos curriculum. Looking forward to hearing more about how this impacts learning with your student populations.