Mapping the future

As a senior at Southern Cayuga High School three years ago, Tiffany Edwards wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life post graduation. Edwards, who lives in Genoa, enjoyed times when her physics teacher, Carl Scheffler, who would have students go outside and play around with global positioning systems units he had on hand. The new-looking technology certainly held her attention.

But a class trip to Cayuga Community College three years ago - where she saw a demonstration and presentation for a geographic information systems (GIS) course offered by the school - really grabbed Edwards and helped her clarify the direction she wanted to take.

“I liked when they brought us into the lab to find images of our neighborhoods,” she said. Edwards was referring to a technological “test drive” for students, using GIS to examine and explore their neighborhoods - down to the block and the house.