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Youth-Centered Speculative Approaches: Community-Based Data and GIS

Sat, April 11, 9:45 to 11:15am PDT (9:45 to 11:15am PDT), Los Angeles Convention Center, Floor: Level Two, Room 515B

Abstract

Objectives
This study presents design recommendations for integrating Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) within a speculative design framework, positioning it as a visually accessible tool that helps students analyze and interpret spatial data through maps. We examine how students engage with various forms of data during the design process and propose how future GIS-based speculative learning models can support more efficient, inclusive, and transformative learning experiences.

Theoretical Framework
Critical data literacy challenges the neutrality of data and foregrounds the cultural, social, and political dynamics embedded in data collection and interpretation (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2020). By rooting data practices in community contexts, students are able to interrogate whose voices are represented or excluded and use data as a tool for both analysis and change (Boyd & Crawford, 2012). Speculative design, as an imaginative and participatory learning model, creates space for students to use both artistic expression and technical tools such as GIS to envision alternative futures for their communities (Fazio, 2023). Together, these approaches position students as designers of socially grounded, data-informed, and ecologically sustainable solutions.

Methods
The project River, is a collaborative initiative of students, teachers, and researchers working together to co-design a high school environmental engineering curriculum. Across 12 co-design sessions the team explored local environmental challenges, focusing on a highly engineered river system. Here we investigate the role of data in students’ development of engineering solutions. We perform a thematic analysis of audio recordings from a speculative design activity where students were invited to reimage the river. By closely reviewing the audio recordings, inductive codes were created about the student’s integration of knowledge and data into the framing and design of their solutions. Themes of Prior Knowledge, Observational Data, and Lived Experiences emerged.

Data Sources
Our source includes the session planning document, field notes, and audio-recordings, along with artifacts generated by the team during the session.

Results
Students synthesized insights from their field trips, community interviews, and personal experiences to inform their engineering solutions, revealing both the depth of their reasoning and the collaborative nature of their design thinking (Table 1).

[Insert Table 1]
These examples highlight the student’s ability to synthesize knowledge and data across diverse sources to inform their thinking. However, as evident in the codes, we found that teams were limited in their explicit discussion of data and technologies. We suggest that GIS would enhance students' ability to harmonize both quantitative and qualitative data into impactful results and visualizations, whilst simultaneously building community oriented engineering literacy and skills, such as map-making, programming, and spatial analysis techniques, amongst a toolbox of statistical methods.

Significance
By embedding GIS-based activities within the curriculum, such as interactive mapping, students can begin to integrate diverse data forms to better inform and visualize their design decisions. These community centric methods will deepen engagement with the technical skills and curate meaningful understanding of the built and natural environment, reinforcing the value of a community-centered GIS learning model in supporting data driven change along with deepening connection with the place.

Authors