Projects

Santa Ines Mission Aqueduct Project Featured Project
The Environmental and Spatial Technologies (EAST) class at Santa Ynez High School used technologies, experts, original documents, and student curiosity in a project to attempt to map the ancient water system at Mission Santa Ines. For their work they received the California Governor's Award for Historic Preservation in 2004. In the process, the students may have pushed back the bounds of history and developed a complete mapping of a 200 year old mystery. It is a story of technology, education, community service and history. Read more...

Vineyard Mapping Image 1
The EAST program has worked with local vintners mapping vineyards. They started with Andrew Murray mapping varietals. This gave the vineyard a more accurate measure of acreage for planning, water applications, pesticides and herbicide applications. This has created a market for the students and a demand for their work. 3 students now work for 2 vineyard management companies. Students used Trimble units, ESRI software, Adobe software, Microsoft software and appreciate the help of Vineyard Manager Benny Merz. Mike Carlson, Tim Manchester, Matt Pedersen and Clay Garland were the students primarily involved in this project.

Highway 154 Traffic Accident Mapping and Analysis Image 1 - Image 2 - Image 3
In the community the students have worked with the California Highway Patrol mapping accidents along Highway 154 with 4 years worth of accident data. This project was selected by EAST last year to be made into a training video and shown to new programs. It is a model of many uses of technology including GIS, GPS, public speaking, graphics, web and video. The students presented this to all Drivers Ed classes at the high school, the board, Rotary , CHP, TUPE safety meetings, and the video was shown by Joyce Hinkson of the California Department of Education at many conferences. The Highway 154 Traffic Safety Project is also an example of using multiple technologies (GIS, GPS, web, video, photo, graphics, and publishing) to showcase the students' abilities. This was featured in a CDE publication sent to all California administrators. Students Nick Mazza, Clarice Weatherford, Jessie Gavlak, Tim Manchester, Clay Garland were EAST students primarily involved in this effort.

Search and Rescue
The EAST class opened their rooms on weekends to work in a series of Boy Scout projects and Eagle Scout Projects and taught numerous students some of the software. This has resulted in an Eagle Scout project by EAST student Liam Keane where hikers, bikers, hunters and others can submit their destination and departure times so Search and Rescue can be aware if any problems arise.

Joseph Chapman, the Santa Ynez Pirate
EAST students Breanna Schlaggs, Erin Gnekow and Emily Garland used the research from the Mission Santa Ines Aqueduct Project to write the story of Joseph Chapman, the man who built the Mission mills. Born in New England, he was a pirate captured by the Spanish in a running battle at Refugio Pass. Held in jail for over a year, he convinced the authorities he could build a fulling mill. This became the first use of industrialization on the West Coast. The book is provided to all local 4th grade teachers who study the Missions, and is a great resource for local history.

Fund Raising Assistance
EAST students are called on often to work with groups involved in fund raising. Ginger Dolyak worked with Solvang Elementary School creating banners for their school fund - raising golf tournament. EAST student Jessie Gavlak worked with Mrs Rohde and the SYVUHS Art Department designing badges for the annual chalk festival which is a fund raiser for every high school department. Students have worked with Solvang Recreation Department publishing flyers for concerts and events for youth in the valley.

Solvang School Standards Posters Image 1
EAST student Erik Glendinning, assisted by others, created California State Standards posters for all classrooms at Solvang School. Solvang is a K - 8 school that Erik attended. When he heard of the problem facing the administrators, Erik volunteered and used the California Department of Education's Web Site - www.cde.ca.gov - to get the Standards. He then used Adobe Pagemaker and Microsoft Word to format the posters of all the standards in the core areas of Math, Science , English / Language Arts and Social Studies. These are posted in all classes at the 900 student school.

School Safety
The class also completed a safety map of the school that is second to none. This CAD and Microstation project has done by Mike Carlson has been used in many projects and is the basis for the School Disaster plan put together by Assistant Principal Jerry Swanitz, Director of Maintenance Gary Kersey, and the EAST class.

 

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