United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Fellowship
Community Site Assessment for Sustainable and Resilient Cities (LEED).
Dianna Gielstra, Ph.D., Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona)
Kathryn Ortiz, M.A, Pima Community College (Arizona)
2022-2023
Introduction:
Welcome to your role in an international mission. This mission is dedicated to expanding
educational access and championing student empowerment through "open pedagogy." In this
approach, you, as a student, are at the heart of an engaging, collaborative learning environment,
with the freedom to access your educational journey. What is this mission's ultimate goal? To
heighten social justice in our community, promoting the free exchange of knowledge and work.
Under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, this renewable
assignment paves your path to becoming an agent of change within your community. Prepare to
embark on this transformative journey.
For this work, we will integrate the disciplines of Geography, Language, Culture, Rhetoric,
Composition, and the Teaching of English to achieve the primary goal of responding to SDG #4:
Quality Education. Within this SDG we will focus on the specific target 4.7: “By 2030, ensure
that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development,
including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable
lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global
citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable
development.” This assignment also focuses on SDG #11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Purpose:
This active learning practice is designed to explore data regarding community demographics,
economics, families, housing, and social factors. Data are recorded in an Open Attribute Table to
be used for mapping and assessment of spatial patterns. Students use these patterns to compare
sites and make recommendations to the city council for site development to reduce community
risk from dangerous heat.

Learning Objectives:
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Use web maps to locate vulnerable communities (City to National Scales)
Explore demographic analytics to curate data in an “open access” attribute table
Describe spatial patterns and rank using industry LEED Certification criteria for locating
at-risk communities to advise community development.

Instructions:
Project Scenario: Increased summer temperatures caused by climate change make cities hotter
because of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The UHI has caused a dangerous situation for
people and infrastructure, and green solutions are needed to mitigate the impact and decrease
social vulnerability. To create a resilient and sustainable community, your city council has tasked
your urban planning team with a site assessment to identify vulnerable populations to build
infrastructure solutions (ex., cooling centers, renewable energy infrastructure, and tree placement
for urban forests) to provide relief for the community.
Your team is using the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) Tools Scorecard (LEED) guidelines to guide the urban planning site assessment
to develop solutions for vulnerable populations to help mitigate heat stress. The site assessment
focuses on solutions that overcome income constraints and promote community health and safety.
The site assessment requires creating data for a Geographic Information System (GIS). This
requires you to “ask geographic questions” using a web map to locate five of the most vulnerable
areas in your community. All projects seeking LEED certification must follow the requirements,
and projects can be selective of the credits they wish to pursue. Your planning team has decided
to use the LEED credits for the “High Priority Site and Equitable Development” part of the
scorecard.
The intent of High Priority Site and Equitable Development is as follows:
“To build the economic and social vitality of communities, encourage project location in areas
with development constraints and promote the ecological, cultural, and community health of the
surrounding area while understanding the needs and goals of existing residents and businesses.”
(USGBC, n.d.)
Based on the LEED criteria, the geographic questions for this project are:
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What census tract has household income at or below 80% Area Median Income (AMI)?
(USGBC, n.d.)
What census tract has 20% of population at or below poverty rate (depending on location
choose state, provincial, or system that makes laws for the area)? (USGBC, n.d.)

Why does LEED use the AMI? The AMI is the median household income. We can think of
median as the “middle” income in a group of families ordered from the highest earning to the
lowest earning families in an area. The median is NOT to be confused with “average.” The
median is a better indicator of a typical income in an area as it is not skewed by the higher income
households. The AMI LEED criteria reflect households that may not have the economic resources
to cope with more severe consequences of a changing climate.
Part 1: Explore the Census Reporter to search communities to find the Area Median Income
(AMI). Find places in your community in the Census Reporter
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In the Profile search window type in the “city”, “state”, and “zip code.”
Select the correct “Map this address” in the drop-down menu.
The map layers window will appear on the left of the screen. In the layers window select
“place.”
Statistics for the area will appear below the map arranged in the order of: Demographics,
Economics, Families, Housing, and Social factors. Scroll down to “Economics.”
Find “Income”, “Median Household Income.” Record that value to use in Part 2 census tract
exploration.

Part 2: Explore the interactive, online Justice Map to locate five census tracts that match the most
vulnerable areas you identified in your community. The Justice Map is a visualization of race and
income within communities of the contiguous United States informed by the United States
Census.
Use the recorded Median Household Income from Part 1 as the value to determine if the census
tracts meet the LEED criteria.
Find a city near you on the Justice Map.
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Use the + on the interactive map to zoom in on the region. Use the – on the interactive map to
zoom out of the region.
The map default is to show different census tracts that will appear on the map in a variety of
colors. These colors are “classifications” based on the data for income.
Click on a census tract within the region you selected. (A legend featured on the right side of
the map will identify the census tract number, the % of population by race, and the total
number of populations in that tract.)
If income with a + or – estimate does not appear in the legend, then please click “income” on
the homepage “Ribbon”.

Based on your knowledge, the geographic questions are:

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What additional information in this map do you think is important to tell the spatial story of
this community? Is there something missing from this spatial story? (Make notes, save for the
discussion question write-up)
Sense of Place component: Based on your experiences in the community, what additional
information do you think is important to add dimension of place? (Make notes, save for the
discussion question write-up)

Record the 5 location census tracts and their data into the “open access” attribute table. An
attribute table is a table that contains the non-spatial elements of a something that might be found
at a location. These data describe characteristics or “attributes.” An attribute table has this data
arranged in columns and rows. The rows are the spatial objects (for our lesson the spatial objects
are the five “sites”). The columns contain the attributes, or for our lesson, the characteristics of
the five sites.

Part 3: Record the information from five chosen sites to fill in the Google sheet Open Attribute
Table for Site Comparison. Please find the bottom-most row that is empty and add your site data
to the table. Do this for each of your sites. Use this link to access the table:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RbrFOVT4X9yi125I8LX6d48Km0dIa9lBVK3qyRI1js/edit?usp=sharing
Open Attribute Table for Site Comparison

Part 4: Research these sites further by revisiting the Census Reporter. Place a “City, State, and
Zipcode” in the “Profile field” and click “enter.” Place additional information of useful data from
Demographics, Economics, Families, Housing, and Social factors into the “Notes” column of the
Open Attribute Table. Use the notes to explore for Site Comparison.

Part 5: Download the table as a .csv file to add into the Quantum Geographic Information System
(QGIS) project. Once your project parameters are set (Make sure to select the

“Project”>”Properties”> “CRS” (Coordinate Reference System), add the .csv data to the QGIS
project.
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Select “Layer”
Select “Add Layer”
Select “Add Delimited Text Layer”

Part 6: Create a map that tells the spatial story of these communities. Make sure the maps explore
the following geographic questions:
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Which site has the lowest area median income?
Which area has 20% of the population below poverty?

Write a 1 page story explaining what your map shows. Discuss the techniques you used to
display descriptive elements of your map. Does your map tell a strong spatial story of which
communities may need assistance to mitigate risk from climate change? Explain your logic.
Submit your map and discussion of the spatial story.
Add the map to the ESRI Storymap gallery with one quote from your reflection.

References:
Census Reporter. (n.d.). https://censusreporter.org/
ArcGIS Storymap. (n.d.) https://storymaps.arcgis.com/
Justice Map. (2020). http://www.justicemap.org/
Quantum Geographic Information System. (n.d.). https://www.qgis.org/en/docs/index.html
U.S. Green Building Council. (n.d.). High Priority Site and Equitable Development.
https://www.usgbc.org/credits/new-construction-schools-new-construction-retail-newconstruction-healthcare-data-centers--9

Format Requirements:
Open attribute table as a URL, Document submission is .docx, ESRI Story Map as a web URL

Assessment Criteria:
Map Assignments
Criteria Exceeds
Expectations

Approaches Expectations

Emergent

Student uses geographic
Student uses geographic
Little use of geographic
questions and LEED criteria to questions and LEED criteria to questions and LEED criterias
explore spatial thinking and
explore spatial thinking and
are employed. The visual
spatial
comparisons are
spatial
patterns of
human/environment
relationship, communities and
change

patterns of
few.
human/environment
relationship, communities and No Assignment Submitted
change. The visual
comparisons are limited. Some
The visual comparisons are
development is found for
deeply reflective.
human/environment
Recommendations based on
relationship, but less attention
student ranking and
is placed on communities and
comparison of sites is clear
change. The visual
and concise. Associated map comparisons are more shallow
is uploaded. ESRI Storymap is in emotional depth. Text for
developed using text, spatial
artifacts is 150-250 words.
pattern and statistics explored.
Text for artifacts is 300-500
words.

Community Site Assessment for Sustainable and Resilient Cities (LEED). is licensed by
Dianna Gielstra, Ph.D., Maricopa Community Colleges (Arizona) and Kathryn Ortiz, M.A, Pima
Community College (Arizona) under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC
BY-NC-SA)