BITS Program participants are walking Philadelphia, braving heat and sun, to examine landscapes of Fairmount Park. On Temple University's Main Campus, they are wearing their new Temple IDs to work in computer labs, libraries, classrooms, and offices as interns and as service learners. They are charged with creating social media projects related to environmental issues and to depict the observations they are making on their field assignments.

Last week, Service Learning students completed Sadie's Parkway Tour - a 3 mile long loop from Love Park to the Art Museum of Philadelphia. Along the way, students examined the changes in the pedestrian landscape.  They explored the uses of Fairmount Park areas around the river once they arrived at the Art Museum.

Tomorrow, we begin a week-long examination of the lower trail of the Wissahickon Park and along the Schuylkill Banks pathway near Falls Bridge. Friends of the Wissahickon's Kevin Groves provided students with an orientation to their visit last week.

On main campus, interns and service learners are gaining the IT, geography, mapping and social media skills they will need to document the environmental problems they are examining. Some are mapping bike racks on Main Campus as part of Temple's new Fuji Bikes program; others are preparing to mount a mock environmental trial. All of the students are writing blog posts about their experiences.

Here are just three of the many blogs currently being developed as part of BITS Summer Intensive 2009:

Environmental Research Forum - This internship group is blogging about all the green internship sites across Temple University's campus this summer

Stories from a PSU Student - This blog is being developed as a journal of one participant's comments on their internship experience working for ITSRG this summer

ITSRG Blogger Support Group - This blog was created by ITSRG staff member, Kelly George, to share tips for ITSRG mentors on how to engage students in creating their own blogs!

Michele Masucci, Director
ITSRG - Temple University

This week, BITS Participants are walking the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with digital cameras and clipboards in hand. They are examining three aspects of this iconic Philadelphia landscape. First, they are searching for unexpected features, unique historical and cultural juxtapositions, signs of competing uses, and the use of symbols to represent Philadelphia's urban identity and history. Second, the BITS team is examining the design and environmental characteristics of the Parkway. Finally, they are assessing the relationship between the pedestrian and transportation modalities of the space.

Here are links to institutions and organizations we encountered along the way.

Schulkill Banks
Center City and Fairmount are connected via a new, paved path for pedestrians, cyclist, wheelchair, stroller, and roller use.

The Water Works
The Delaware River Basin includes the watersheds of the Wissahickon Creek, the Schulkill River and the Delaware River. This educational center is a resource for learning about the historical development and contemporary challenges of those waterways.

Logan Square Neighborhood Association
"The square is a circle." This comment has been echoed at the foot of the Swann Fountain. Check out the LSNA's history page here.

Sadie's First Walk
Here is a map of the walk route, updated regularly to add new photos and links of interested based on our visits.

Click Here to read our prior post on the Parkway walk and associated Resource Links.

Michele Masucci, Director
ITSRG - Temple University

ITSRG has been examining web-maps during the past year. There have been two aspects of web maps we find of interest. First, we are interested in the data that is being visualized by the map. Second, we are interested in who is contributing to the data sets and the content of comments related to the maps that are disseminated. We have created a separate page for maps we have featured in blog posts called WebMaps. You can explore our archived comments about featured maps there.

Here are a few recently published web maps you may find of interest. Click on the images to read the stories.

Official Map of Michigan?

LAPD Interactive Crime Map

NYT Broad Unemployment