How Green is your Neighbourhood?

In this lesson, you will explore your neighbourhood/school block using a map to discover negative and positive contributors to climate change.

Negative contributors (High Risk Features) are features that emit carbon, such as cars and trucks, and paved areas and dark-coloured roofs that increase the  urban heat island effect . Positive contributors (Low Risk Features) are features that help to reduce the vulnerability of an area to damage by either environmental or human-caused threats such as climate change. These features include gardens, solar panels, light-coloured roofs and trees. 

The purpose of this lesson is to get you thinking about whether your neighbourhood or school block has been designed with the environment in mind. As you go through it, consider how sustainable the surroundings are for the citizens who live there.

In this activity, you will use ArcGIS Online to explore and analyze the negative and positive contributors to climate change. Using an imagery basemap, you will gain a different perspective of your neighbourhood/school block.

Time requirement: 45-60 minutes

1. What are some of the positive contributors (high risk) of climate change in your neighbourhood/school block?
2. What are some negative contributors (low risk)?
3. How does environmental design support sustainable neighbourhoods?
4. What recommendations would you give your neighbours and family that would help make your neighbourhood/school block greener?

You will create two (2) maps for this assignment:

1. A map showing the features on your block that are positive contributors (low risk features) to climate change A map showing the features on your block that are negative contributors (high risk features) to climate change.

1. Sign into   ArcGIS Online  .
2. Click Map.
3. Click Save > Save As to make a copy of this map. Add a title and tags (keywords) to the map.
4. Begin with locating your neighbourhood/school block. Using the magnifying icon on the bottom right to bring up the search box, type in your home or school address and if an option comes up that matches, select it OR click on the magnify glass. This will take you to the location you entered.
5. Close the Search Result window.
6. Click Basemap to change it to the Imagery Hybrid basemap. This will give you a different perspective of your neighbourhood/school block.
7. Explore your map to find negative and positive contributors to climate change. If you need a refresher, scroll up to view the images.
8. Add at least two (2) features that are positive contributors and at least two (2) that are negative contributors to climate change in your neighbourhood block.
9. Zoom into your first feature. Click Layers from the left toolbar > Add > Create Sketch Layer .
10. Using the sketch tool bar on the right, select polygon and draw a shape around your feature. Click to draw the segments of your feature and double click to complete the feature.
11. Change the colour of the shape to be green for positive contributors (low risk) and red for negative contributors (high risk).
12. In the sketch toolbar, click Pop-up and add a title and description for your feature.
13. When you have added all the features to your map, don't forget - Save your map.
14. Click Share (left hand toolbar) and select an option. You can share with your Organization or with a Group (if your teacher created one for your class).
15. When you are ready to create your second map, click on New Map.
16. Begin adding features to your map.
17. Don't forget to Save your map and Share it if you want to.

Now that you have mapped the features that are positive and negative contributors to climate change in your neighbourhood/school block, you can move on to creating your story map to highlight your findings.

Lay out how you want to present your web maps in Activity 1.

Time required: 45 minutes

Finally, you will highlight the features in your neighbourhood/school block in a story map. Include the answers to the questions in the first section in your findings.

Remember to use your story map outline.

Time required: 75-90 minutes

Questions? Contact  k12@esri.ca .

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