Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 12 : Spring 2012 | Page 77
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University students
focus on
community
service & learning
T
he University of Maine at Presque Isle has been abuzz
with community service/learning activities during the
- academic year, with students doing everything from helping to develop GIS maps so local municipalities
can create planning and development efficiencies, to conducting
a study for local police on theft from motor vehicles.
UMPI’s GIS Laboratory has just completed work on a major
GIS mapping project for central Aroostook County cities
and towns. The project, funded by a $, grant from the
Maine Office of Geographic Information Systems, provides the
municipalities with free, high-tech tools for managing their
land parcels.
Using GIS [geographic information systems] technology, the
project coordinator, UMPI professor Dr. Chunzeng Wang, and
UMPI students converted each municipality’s paper tax maps and
tax assessor’s data into a GIS database. Each database includes an
accurate digital parcel map for a given township with detailed data
on each parcel, including location and boundaries, owner
information, assessed land values, and tax information.
The municipalities involved included: Presque Isle, Easton,
Washburn, Limestone, Westfield, Perham, Wade, New Sweden,
Mars Hill, Mapleton, Castle Hill, Chapman, Woodland, Caribou,
and Fort Fairfield. A total of , parcels were digitized and
converted to GIS data.
Two students, Thomas Pinette and Zicong Zhou, worked
full-time on the project in Summer . Two full-time interns,
Chelsey Ellis and Gary Parent, also worked on the project because of its connections to UMPI’s EPSCoR program [Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research], funded by
the National Science Foundation through the Maine
EPSCoR Program.
“The GIS parcel project was an invaluable experience
for me,” Pinette said.
“I was able to get
real-world practice
with GIS work rather than
only have classroom labs to draw
my experience from. Not only that, but I have the satisfaction of
knowing the project is helping local towns as well.”
UMPI Criminal Justice Students also had the opportunity to
positively impact their local community, conducting a study for
the Presque Isle Police Department on theft from motor vehicles –
typical targets include cell phones, prescription medication, and
cash – and providing some potential solutions to the problem.
UMPI professor Dr. Charles Johnson and nine Criminal Justice
students worked on the -page document.
“This project gave our students the opportunity to recognize
a current crime pro