Information Science + Studies
Victoria Szabo
Artist’s Statement
The ISS 2009 Certificate Capstone students developed the Multimedia Mapping: Muhuru Bay project as part of a larger collaboration between the ISS Program, Duke Global Health, the WISER Program, and DukeEngage. In the course taught by ISS Program Director Victoria Szabo students created a "mapping toolkit" designed to enable 11 DukeEngage students led by Professor Sherryl Broverman of Duke Global Health and Biology, along with postdoctoral collaborators Eric P Greene and Eve Puffer, to go in the field in Muhuru Bay to collect information about disease prevention, and to assist in the planning and development of a new boarding school for girls in this rural region. The DukeEngage students collected images, video, and data points about key locations in the Muhuru community. Graduate student Allen Riddell helped move the site into a Drupal interface in the summer.
The project continued after the DukeEngage students returned. An additional set of independent study students further developed the maps and organized the content created in Muhuru. Another student did a Visual Studies project analyzing how local Muhuru community students envisioned their own community through conceptual maps. One project in particular, a Latrine Mapping project designed to help improve water supplies by rating existing latrines in order to prioritize construction and repairs, continues on through the efforts of local community members who continue to use the GPS trackers we brought to Kenya.
In Spring 2010 several Muhuru School teachers came to Duke. They participated in a weeklong technology training session led by ISS DUS Richard Lucic, with help from ISS Program Director Victoria Szabo, and CIT Staff members.
Our hope is to continue the Muhuru project collaboration as they school develops further, in particular consulting on the development of the technology lab that will service the school and the community at large.
This project was support by a generous CIT Innovation Grant. Szabo presented the project at the 2009 CIT Showcase, and Broverman and Szabo presented a talk on the project at Educause 2009 in Denver.
Multimedia Mapping: Muhuru Bay, Kenya