Currently, EMU is the convenor of the Geospatial Technologies Talent Consortium (GTTC) through Marshall Plan for Talen Program administered by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. The GTTC consortium consists of Wayne County RESA, the MiSTEM Network, Michigan Works!-Southeast Michigan Community Alliance (SEMCA), Van Buren Public Schools, Michigan Communities Association of Mapping Professionals (MiCAMP), and other a dozen school districts and community/business partners in SE Michigan and Grand Traverse City Region.

The main mission of Geospatial Technologies Talent Consortium is developing the geospatial technologies talent pipeline in high-demand geo-tech fields in Michigan. GTTC has four goals (1) enabling students to have high demand and high-wage career experience through accomplishing GIS (geographic information systems or called geo-spatial technologies) internship projects in businesses; (2) to earn Industrial GIS Certification (ArcGIS Desktop Entry-level Certificate) through competency-based GIS instruction and hands-on experience through GIS internship; (3) to have options earning university concurrent/dual enrollment and early-middle college credits; and (4) providing professional development opportunities in GIS for teachers who can integrate GIS as learning and teaching tools in the STEM courses.

Please visit the GTTC Webpage for updated information, www.migttc.com.

NSF GRACE Project (Award #1433712 and 1433640; $2,000,000; 9/1/2014 – 12-31/2018): www.nsfgrace.net

Collaborative Project 

GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education (GRACE). EMU is the leading organization and Dr. Yichun Xie was PI. GRACE was a SPrEaD (Successful Project Expansion and Dissemination) project building upon an earlier successful ITEST project: Mayor’s Youth Technology Corps (MYTC–NSF DRL-0737589).

Intellectual Merit –  The scope of work for GRACE consists of four important elements: 1) the teacher professional development (PD); 2) the student technological experience in GIS/T; 3) the statewide partnership to provide paid internship opportunities for students to have hands-on GIS/T skills and practices at workplaces; and 4) the spread and dissemination of purposeful technology education and career training into broader communities. The project’s tangible goals were to have 5000 explorers, 2500 investigators, 300 interns, and 120 teachers received GIS/T training and integrate GIS/T in teaching and learning in STEM and social studies

Broader Impacts – The GRACE project exceeded its project goals. The major accomplishments include: 1) Including 169 trained teachers, and the development of two online five-unit courses and 90 hours of teacher professional development; 2) Based on these courses, engagement of 14,384 students at the explorer level and 12,846 students at the Investigator level, far exceeding the original targeted numbers; and 3) Facilitation of 272 paid GIS internships and 49 paid other technology internships.

Products – The contributions and products from the GRACE interns were highly appraised by the hosting organizations. The internship pilots were highlighted in articles in Directions Magazine (DM, 2016) and GISCafe (2016), and in a video on YouTube (Lafreniere, 2017). In addition, the GRACE project was selected from among 100,000 projects to receive the 2016 Special Achievement in GIS award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI, 2016). This award is given to projects around the world to recognize outstanding work with GIS technology (for outstanding vision, commitment, design, and conduct of a very challenging project).

1. Scarlett, S., Lafreniere, D., Trepal, D., Arnold, J., & Xie, Y. (2019) Out of the Classroom and Into History: Mobile Historical GIS and Community-Engaged Teaching. The History Teacher, 53(1).
2. Anderson, D. & Xie, Y. (2015). Using inquiry-based Geographic Information System Modules for Addressing NGSS Standards: The GRACE Program. In Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2015 (pp. 349-358). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). ISBN 978-1-939797-16-2.
3. Xie, Y. & Hoff. A. (2015). Geographical Information Science and Technology-Based STEM Education in e-Learning. In C. Watson (Edt.), Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on e-Learning (ICEL 2015), pp. 323- 330. College of the Bahamas, Nassau, 25-26 June 2015. ISBN: 978-1-910810-26-2.
4. Informational Video: Anderson, D., Hoff, A., Lewandowski, A., Raymond, R., and Vanden Heuval, A. “GIS/T Resources & Applications for Career Education (GRACE)”. The 2015 National Science Foundation Teaching and Learning Video Showcase. (Our video entry won an “Audience Choice” award.). http://videohall.com/p/555. May 11-14, 2015.
5. Video on GRACE Internship Program in Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan: https://tinyurl.com/NSFGRACE
6. Radio Show about GRACE: http://www.keweenawreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/GRACE-Project.mp3
7. County Midland Newsletter Article, IT/GIS Director Presents” Midland Model” at Summit in San Diego, August 2018, County of Midland, Michigan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MgslP81MmOvEVSYCr0hxz6OytM2_5O0A/view?usp=sharing