US+Projects

Showcased here are the Walker School's Upper School projects. Projects are listed from most recent to the earliest.

//Completed March 2009// Students in Mrs. Stricklen's World History course created a layer in Google Earth in order to visualized the crusades. Students discussed the motivations that led various groups to take up the crusade, cultures they encountered and the effects of the crusade on local cultures.
 * Mapping the Crusades**

//Completed October, 2008// Students of the Walker School in Marietta, GA participated in the 2008 Georgia Geological Society annual field trip. Geology and environmental science students were interested in learning more about the geology of Northern Georgia. A complete description of this project can be found on From the Earth.
 * North Georgia Geology Field Trip**

//Completed October, 2008// "Student read the book "[|The Far Traveler]" by Nancy Marie Brown and used Google Earth to trace the travels of Gudrid, a Viking woman around 1100 AD. The story focuses on a group of archaeologists who excavate sites in Iceland, Greenland and Vineland (The New Word) and compare their findings to the [|Viking Sagas]. What they discover is the life of a very stirring woman who might just have influenced Eric the Red to visit the new world, and who lived there herself for awhile. You can listen to excerpts of the Viking sagas that pertain to this novel in a series of podcasts created by this student for this project.
 * The Far Traveler**

//Completed September, 2008// Student in English 9 read the book Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera and then spent some time researching the migration patterns of Wright Whales. Students also researched the role they played in [|Maori] culture.
 * Whale Rider**

**Trace Your Trash** //Completed May, 2008// Students in AP Environmental Science read the book [|Garbage Land] by [|Elizabeth Royte] and then spent the spring semester looking at what trash our school creates and where it goes. Students identified key activities at our school that contribute to our waste stream, visited an electronic waste recycling plan, a transfer station, and a landfill. Whenever possible we interviewed key personnel and created vodcasts which can be viewed on our project wiki. This project is an ongoing exploration. Walker students want to encourage other schools around the country to trace their trash and contribute to our layer in Google Earth Pro. We hope that this information will stimulate discussion on education and waste management and will be used to develop a grass roots plan to reduce our waste stream.

//Under Completion May, 2008// Students in Outdoor Culture and Technology used Google Earth Pro to create a layer of famous explores and their expeditions around the globe. Some of the explorers studied were Cook, Magellan, Hillary, and The Blind Traveler. Some students also elected to goecode modern explorations and adventures. An example has been included here. All student work can be viewed on the final projects page for this course.
 * Famous Explorers**

//Completed May, 2008// A Walker senior worked with her English, history, and technology teachers to create a layer in Google Earth Pro. The student was interested in learning how aspects of poetry, history, and our ideas of place could be combined and analyzed in new ways using a mash-up such as Google Earth. The student created a podcast of each poem and embedded it into the placemark so you can listen to them.
 * Poetry and Place: How poets viewed their place on Earth**

Revised Nov. 3, 2009

//Completed March, 2008// Students of Outdoor Culture and Technology created a layer in Google Earth Pro of adventure trips that Walker students had been on. This was part of an assignment of developing a Life List of trips you have been on and where you would like to go. Some of the trips discussed are kayaking, climbing, caving, tubing, and hiking trips. Each placemark is geocoded to where the trip started and includes general information on how to complete such a trip, including a link to a suggested outfitter and essential equipment. This project was completed early in the semester and was used to introduce students to their classmates. This is an ongoing project. We hope that the layer will become more dense in subsequent years, as more students add their trips to this layer. We hope to create an online Walker alumni community related to outdoor extreme sports and responsible eco-tourism. //(not shown because it contains personal information of students)//
 * Walker Adventure Community**

//Completed January, 2008// Students in our Technical Fluency class used Google Earth Pro to create a short tour of their lives. Placemarks include pictures of where they were born, where they live now, and at least 5 places and/or activities that played some significance in developing their character today. The projects were used to introduce themselves to their classmates. //(not shown because of personal information)//
 * Introducing Myself**

//Completed December, 2007// Students of our Internet Technology course study the structure of the Internet and its uses. Of particular interest to students at Walker are how the Internet is used by marginalize groups to communicate with each other. Students in this class participated in creating a social networking [|site] on Ning, videos, a wiki, and a layer in Google Earth about how children are marginalized around the globe through poverty, disease, warfare, human trafficking, developmental disorders, malnutrition, and sexual orientation. Students hope to build on the layer from year to year and to encourage collaboration from other schools around the globe.
 * Our Lost Children**

//Completed October, 2007// Students of AP Environmental Science researched local environmental problems in Georgia and then created vodcasts on these environmental issues. The vodcasts were embedded in a layer using Google Earth Pro. We hope this will be an ongoing project and hope to encourage other APES teachers from around the globe to create vodcasts on environmental issues and add them to our layer. This activity will allow us to learn about environmental issues from those who have to live with them.
 * Environmental I-Reports**