SCIGN Installs GPS in Schools

The Southern California Integrated GPS Network (SCIGN), SCEC's new crustal deformation initiative, is in the process of permitting over 100 new sites. Thirty-two schools and colleges that have responded positively to requests to install GPS stations on their campuses. A little under a dozen schools (such as Fremont High School and Windsor Magnet School) are in the Los Angeles Unified School District and have greatly helped our efforts to increase the density of the network in much of the L.A. basin.

Individual schools elsewhere in the L.A. basin and regionally in southern California have joined in to fill gaps that were otherwise difficult to find sites in. Examples include the Olga Reed Elementary School in Santa Barbara County, Frazier Mountain High School in Frazier Park, Rio Hondo College in Whittier, South Pointe Middle School in Diamond Bar, and College of the Desert in Palm Desert.

These institutions of learning are the ideal hosts. SCIGN not only benefits from the space, utilities and security they provide for the GPS stations, but the schools gain too: (1) K-12 schools will receive the SCEC GPS education module to complement their science curriculum; (2) colleges and universities will have access to data collected by SCIGN and techniques used by SCIGN geodesists and geophysicists to use as material for courses and research; (3) Students of all ages will see a real science project in action and be able to monitor their station's status on the World Wide Web. For more information, contact John Galetzka, SCIGN coordinator and member of the GPS site selection team: galetzka@gps.caltech.edu.