The Hive Mapping Cooperative (HMC) developed in Chicago in the spring of 2014 as an effort to facilitate collaborative youth-led inquiry into human ecology and urban ecosystems by developing shared systems for teens from across the city to collect, analyze, visualize, and share georeferenced data using free and open-source mapping, data collection and data sharing tools. HMC was proposed to address the fact that many youth-serving organizations expressed interest in using digital mapping with students but lacked the resources or technical knowledge to do so. HMC sought to identify existing digital technologies that met three criteria: free open-source software, ease of training and use, and functionality allowing for meaningful data analysis. Partners desired to integrate collaborative mobile data collection, mapping, and visualization technologies to enrich (rather than replace) existing program foci.
This project has engaged multiple out-of-school time programs across a network of organizations and urban spaces (i.e. neighborhoods, parks, urban farms, forest preserves, and restored natural areas). HMC partners identified a range of technologies and developed curricular strategies for teens to collaborate on locally-relevant issues. HMC has worked to integrate open-source tools to allow teens to collaboratively document, make sense of, question, and imagine alternatives to existing nature-human, nature-nature, and human-human relationships and recognize maps as contested spaces. This session will provide an overview of the project, the range of digital technologies used, and the impact on youth engagement and learning. Attendees will learn how the project has increased teen collaboration and relationship building across programs and organizations. The presenters will share how attendees can freely access project resources and begin integrating these resources into programming.
