INTRODUCTION

The intent of the project is to use the campus Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data and aerial photographs as a basis for on-line educational tools, applicable to a wide range of educational venues. Students use a variety of new learning technologies such as 3-D, VRML, thematic mapping, GPS, and digital photograph navigation to build virtual environments or recreated "scenes" of parts of the U/A campus.

These scenes are targeted for different types of formal and non-formal education. Students in ART289 are using these scenes to create walk-arounds and surround views of proposed sculptures. Other Art students can change the lighting, scale the sculpture, change its texture, etc. or otherwise offer suggestions about how they would change the scene. Students, from RNR271 in the College of Agriculture use the same scenes from a physical data perspective, making recommended land use based on hydrology, vegetation, etc. Still other students in English Composition are invited to use the scenes in their argumentation and critical decision making instruction. The community also participates in the project via the Web. The latter participants include students in K12 and Pima CC, peers, and professionals in the community, and the general public.

This project is unique on this campus for many reasons, not least of which is its unusual partnering. Across the nation, we found a project, at University of Wisconsin, where there is a somewhat similar collaboration between the Engineering College and Facilities Management. But that project is confined to building design and refurbishing. Our project goes beyond those parameters by addressing a wide range of mixes between cultural and physical data and objectives. Students will collect much of this data themselves, using GPS receivers, digital cameras, and other inputs, and they will not confine themselves to buildings. This data will be integrated with the whole campus digital mapping database, including the layers that address vegetation, water, and other environmental factors such as lighting. This project is far-reaching in its inclusiveness. There will be a widespread payoff, with benefits to all the units that work with the campus infrastructure, as well as several academic departments. Finally, we also expect students to become more involved with and appreciative of their campus and its appearance, even as they learn these powerful new technologies.

The project is a collaboration of three disparate units on campus, the Art Department, the College of Agriculture, and Campus Facilities Planning, to build dynamic course content that will be used in the a number of educational venues, listed below:

Presently, ART289 and RNR271 are collecting geographic point data using GPS and integrating it with themes from the campus GIS and orthophotos to create the 3D recreations of the study areas on campus. They are also using the proposed re-modeling of the science mall by the landscape architect the University has hired. ART289 students are also creating digital representations of sculptures to be placed in the scenes. The RNR271 students are modeling the scene from the perspective of drainage and recommended plants (see pictures of this work below). Both classes will try to integrate their justifications for recommended land use, and these justifications will become the basis for documented learning "modules".

This fall, ART103 students will critique the proposals of the 289 students, and their reasoning for the proposed sculptures. It is hoped this will provoke a mentoring process between the higher level students and the freshmen in ART103, which has up to 300 students. Through the learning modules, ART103 students will also study the recommendations of the RNR271 students, so that they may be confronted with the constraints of real-world considerations, much as might happen after they graduate.

Next spring, these scenes will become part of learning modules in English Composition classes under the auspices of the Southwest Project (http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/swp/). They will be used as part of argumentation and decision-making learning projects.

Also through the Southwest Project the technology for creating these scenes will be distributed to Lawrence intermediate school and Fort Lowell elementary school in TUSD and to Pima CC, and used in conjunction with the University's extensive collection of GIS and imagery data for the Tucson basin. Through PIMA CC the technology will also be transferred to the Yaqui Indian Reservation.

Peers such as the Tucson landscape architecture profession and parents of the students will also be able to get on line and share their thoughts with the artist, or members of the classes.

The first area chosen for the project is the science campus, which covers the southwest corner of the main U/A campus. Next we will work in the area of the main mall, as part of the construction projects in that area, and then on a 6^th street refurbishment project, working more directly with the city of Tucson. The last project will introduce other data layers, such as demographics, traffic management and economic impact, into our models.

The learning benefits from this project are manifold, and in keeping with current recommended pedagogical theory:

First, there is a high level of collaboration in all reaches of this project. Students in the formal U/A courses will collaborate with students in other courses while learning to use these innovative tools. Faculty and students from different disciplines will collaborate with each other, and with staff from facilities. U/A members will collaborate with Tucson community members, and the project will extend to K16 learning situations.

Research and infrastructure data will be integrated into instruction, thus preserving that data, while making it more accurate and useful in these applications. Students will add to the data sets.

Students will benefit pedagogically from these recommended learning functions

Highly interactive learning with heavy use of visualization

Inquiry-based decision-making

Real-world projects with local, familiar data

Presenting and defending their work as a portfolio

Students will learn some powerful technologies. They will organize various data layers, put them into Web-based data sources, and verify them with site-collected data using GPS receivers. They will learn how to do spatial data modeling. There is growing recognition of the power, influence, and importance of "place" on many areas of intellectual endeavor. There is an almost unlimited potential for having a "toolbox" of instructional tools which allow students to integrate and visualize specific, real world objects and data. The 3D and virtual reality tools we will use in this project are a good start on this toolbox.

The University of Arizona is a Research One, Land Grant school, with a large resident population, most of whom live in Tucson. There are ways that learning technology can address the needs of this kind of institution, and this project addresses those needs. We need to use technology to build learning that takes advantage of all our strengths, and can be re-purposed to address many audiences. This project does that, leveraging the dollars invested into it by pulling together so many players, and by reaching into so many educational markets. It integrates research into instruction, physical data with cultural, and teaches the participants how to do scientific thinking, to make trade-offs between competing objectives, and something about aesthetics. It serves a wide population, because it is Web-based, and will be accessible to our traditional students in off-hours, and to our growing population of non-traditional students.

There is a large community outreach component built into this project, including specific collaborations with other Tucson schools and agencies. It also benefits those staff and administrators who work with our campus infrastructure, by adding to and refining the data and planning base they work with on a daily basis. In addition, this is a very visibly appealing project, whose products would certainly have some value in winning the attention of our legislature and ABOR, as well as the larger public, who too often cannot understand or appreciate what we do on campus. This project very graphically illustrates some of our most innovative technology, and in easily understood ways.

The University priorities also include building a sense of community, on and off campus. Beyond the very direct and practical institutional effects of this project described above, we think it will spark more awareness and participation in our campus design, and with it, a raised interest in its welfare. With projects envisioned for the future, like refurbishing 6^th Street, the University will have a very direct involvement with community aesthetic and design issues beyond the campus borders. This kind of interaction with Tucson is very healthy.