CADIS Rose from EAST

About 10 years ago, under direction of the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills defined the skills high school students need for employment after graduation.

Consisting of educators, business leaders and media administrators, SCANS challenged schools to provide students with five workplace competencies — use of resources, interpersonal skills, information, systems and technology. The competencies should also stem from three skill foundations — basic skills such as writing, reading, mathematics and speaking; thinking skills such as creativity, decision making and problem solving; and personal qualities such as self-esteem, sociability, self-management and responsibility.

Five years ago, former Greenbriar High School teacher Tim Stephenson answered the challenge by launching a program called Environmental and Spatial Technology. Operating with a hands-on, team-oriented, project-heavy structure, EAST sent ripples throughout the nation as a model program for teaching tomorrow’s lessons.

During its inauguration in the 1996-1997 school year, only 20 students at Greenbriar High School participated in EAST. This year, 15,000 students from 154 schools in Arkansas, Louisiana, Illinois, California, Hawaii and Alabama participate in EAST labs.

Wellsco Graphic Solutions in Paragould supported EAST financially from the beginning, and the Center for Advanced Spatial Technology at the University of Arkansas partnered with EAST educationally.

States, corporations and individual schools finance the labs, which are generally valued at about $500,000 each. Matt Dozier, the EAST communications coordinator at the Little Rock headquarters, estimated that schools pay about $30,000 of that.

“EAST is the future of education,” said Malcolm Williamson, EAST’s outreach coordinator.

EAST participants learn to manipulate cutting-edge technology such as geographic information systems and computer-generated animation. Dozier said EAST students astound experts in technological fields, because their ability to learn seems limitless.

“They prove what we’ve said all along,” Dozier said. “If you give the kids the tools and get out of their way, kids will do some amazing things.”

Northwest Arkansas also supports another advanced learning program for students. This year, five students — chosen from local EAST labs — participated in the Community Asset and Development Information System. In cooperation with the UA’s Center for Advanced Spatial Technology, CADIS produced projects with the Fayetteville planning department.

Williamson is the CADIS project manager, and he said students receive $8 per hour and work 40-hour weeks to design and execute the projects.

“We look at CADIS as another way to develop these students’ work skills, so they can be the business leaders down the road,” Williamson said.

Tim Conklin, Fayetteville’s city planner, and John Goddard, Fayetteville’s geographic information systems director, also helped organize the CADIS projects.

The Bank of Fayetteville contributed $5,000 to the program. Fayetteville Mayor Dan Coody said the city spent $11,000 to finance CADIS, but it saved the city an estimated $70,000-$80,000.

“It’s amazing the quality of work that came out of the those high school kids,” Goddard said. This year, CADIS produced a land-use survey for the Downtown Dickson Enhancement Project, a hydrant obstruction reporting system, a population-growth model for Fayetteville and panorama pictures of the city. Students also helped establish a foundation for an address database.

All of CADIS’ products are featured at www.cast.uark.edu/local/cadis/.