# Youth Map Lab

### AI + GIS Workshops for Curious Minds & Change-Makers

Welcome to the **Youth Map Lab** — a youth-built initiative where students explore their world, solve real problems, and tell powerful stories using **satellite data, AI tools, and GIS technology**.

Blending classroom-ready lessons with open-source creativity, Youth Map Lab helps schools, libraries, and community programs bring geospatial learning to life — whether through high-tech tools or fully printable, low-tech options.

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## 🚀 Start Exploring

[▶ **Start a Workshop**](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/curriculum/README.md)\
[📘 **Teacher Guides**](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/teacher-guides/README.md)\
[📚 **Standards Alignment**](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/alignment/README.md)

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## 🎓 Why Schools Choose Youth Map Lab

> **Plug-and-play design.**\
> Every module includes slides, handouts, student versions, and low-tech alternatives.

> **Built for districts.**\
> Aligned to **NC DPI**, national STEM, digital literacy, and social studies standards.

> **Scalable anywhere.**\
> Works in a full computer lab, a Chromebook classroom, or a paper-only environment.

> **Developed by youth, trusted by educators.**\
> Activities reflect real student perspectives — increasing engagement and ownership.

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## 🧭 Workshops at a Glance

Below are our featured modules. Each includes curriculum, teacher guides, student guides, alignment, and printables.

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### 🛰 Satellites to Seeds

**STEM • Agriculture • Climate • Spatial Thinking**

Students step into the role of agri-scientists using maps, satellite imagery, and AI tools to design a climate-smart farm.

* Map ideal growing zones
* Use or simulate AI plant ID
* Understand drought, flooding & environment
* Build a final “Future Farm” project

[Open Module →](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/curriculum/stem/satellites-to-seeds/overview.md)

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### 🕰 Build a Time Machine

**Social Studies • History • Civics • Justice**

Students explore how communities change over time using GIS, historic maps, and AI-powered reading supports.

* Compare past & present using StoryMaps
* Decode historic sources with AI
* Investigate neighborhood change
* Design a “Then–Now–Future” map

[Open Module →](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/curriculum/social-studies/historical-gis/build-a-time-machine/overview.md)

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### 🧱 LEGO Mapping Lab *(Coming Soon)*

A hands-on spatial thinking workshop using LEGO bricks to model land use, hazards, and community design.\
Perfect for STEM nights, camps, and after-school clubs.

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## 🧩 What Students Will Do

* Ask big questions like scientists and historians
* Use real tools — ArcGIS, Google Earth, satellite imagery, and AI helpers
* Make something meaningful: farms, maps, stories, analyses
* Present findings like civic leaders, researchers, or designers

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## 📦 What's Included

* Facilitator guides
* Ready-to-print handouts
* Low-tech versions of every activity
* Slideshows
* Student sheets
* ArcGIS + QGIS support
* Optional Raspberry Pi sensor activities

Everything is open-source and remixable.

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## 🧰 Quick Navigation

* [Curriculum Catalog](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/curriculum/README.md)
* [Teacher Guides](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/teacher-guides/README.md)
* [Student Guides](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/student-guides/README.md)
* [Standards Alignment](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/alignment/README.md)
* [UDL + Low-Tech Access](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/udl-access/README.md)
* [ArcGIS Tools](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/arcgis-apps/README.md)
* [StoryMap Templates](https://github.com/brandonestevez95/youth-map-lab/blob/main/storymap-templates/README.md)

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## 🌱 Our Mission

Youth Map Lab empowers the next generation of digital explorers.\
We believe every student — rural, urban, connected, or low-tech — deserves access to tools that explain how the world works and how they can change it.

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## 📬 Bring the Lab to Your School or District

**Brandon Estevez, Director**\
📧 <youthmaplab@national4hgeospatialteam.us>\
🔗 <https://www.national4hgeospatialteam.us\\>
🔗 <https://linkedin.com/in/brandonestevez>

***

## 📝 License

All content shared under **CC-BY 4.0**.\
Feel free to remix, adapt, and expand — just give credit.


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