OpenStreetMap Workshop with High School of Environmental Studies (HSES) Students

BetaNYC staff and BetaNYC Civic Innovation Fellows will be teaching an introductory workshop to OpenStreetMap (OSM) and showing how students can make an impact using OpenStreetMap. In a nutshell, OpenStreetMap is an open data platform to place community data. OSM is used by urban planners, government agencies, humanitarian groups, and corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Uber, The New York Times, numerous films and TV shows such as Blade Runner 2049, and so many more groups!

The workshop will be split into two sections. First, in our introductory classroom portion, we will talk about OSM’s impact, teach how to use OSM, and share the 2023 Spring Mapping for Equity project that fellows have piloted this semester, in partnership with North Brooklyn Parks Alliance and Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez’s District 34 office, as an example of what students can do with their own initiatives.

The second portion is where students will act on what they learned! We will walk to Central Park on a mini field trip where students will map public amenities, such as benches, sidewalks, ramps, public bathrooms, and more, which ultimately helps anyone using this data identify where these amenities are located.