In this series of activities students became familiar with the use of GPS units to obtain spatial data about the school campus and linked that data to water chemistry data. Students collected water nutrient data for a local stream and used AEJEE software to locate sampling locations on a map. Students learned how to import GPS data and water chemistry data from an excel file into a GIS program. Questions that were addressed include:
o In what ways can GIS software be utilized to record and organize water quality data at different sites along a local stream?
o How do water nutrient levels compare at different sites along Gulf Stream in Somers, Connecticut?
Students collected GPS data at sites around the school campus to obtain spatial data. They converted decimal degrees to minutes & seconds and entered that data into a .csv file that linked to an already-prepared map of the Somers school campus. They then collected nutrient data and linked that to the campus map.

Marjorie-After bringing the hard drive issue to our attention-This made my life easier at school for the use of ImageJ for my second investigation. We had already begun and I checked...Everything was loaded properly. THANKS!

Thanks for the lesson suggestions and the links to data and explanations. We too have a waterway running through our campus that flows into another nearby stream which all flow into the Taunton River. I can see how we could adapt this lesson and gather spatial data with a gps unit of the campus and locations of the streams and waterways and where the students could collect their water samples for current analysis, even for impact of pollution over time.
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