Youth groups and K-12 educators throughout Florida will soon have access to surveying tools and lesson plans that aim to build a pipeline of future surveyors.
The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Foundation announced on Aug. 25 that UF/IFAS School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (FFGS) has been awarded a $28,000 grant to create a library of surveying and mapping hands-on activities for K-12 clubs, camps, and classrooms.
The project was proposed by FFGS Assistant Director for Geomatics Extension Katie Britt.
“When I saw the NCEES Foundation funding priority of building a pipeline of future surveyors at the K-12 level, I realized it fit well with some of the goals for the FFGS Geomatics Extension program based on feedback from the surveying industry in Florida,” Britt said about how she came up with the lending kit idea.
“I’d heard a lot of input that surveying and mapping are often left out of STEM education in classrooms and other youth organizations, and the suggestion was that it was because of the lack of resources available for educators, both in terms of time to create content and the cost of materials.”
Of the 13 recipients of funds from NCEES, five universities were awarded funds, including the University of Kentucky, the University of Maine, the University of Alaska Anchorage, Florida Atlantic University and UF. See the complete list of awardees and their proposed projects here.
According to the NCEES news release, “These projects demonstrated a clear connection to advancing engineering and surveying licensure to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”
The end result of the FFGS initiative will be a library of educational technology kits available at five FFGS geomatics teaching locations: FFGS in Gainesville, Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (FLREC), Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Plant City, Mid-Florida Research and Education Center (MREC) in Apopka, and West Florida Research and Education Center (WFREC) in Milton.
There will be 10 kits containing lessons with the following themes: communicating with maps, measurements and field notes, compasses and directions, triangles and geometry, surveying with total stations, GPS, landforms and topography, photogrammetry, hydrographic surveying, and GIS and spatial analysis.
“By leveraging existing relationships with teachers, Extension 4-H educators, partners in the surveying industry, and other youth-serving educational programs, the lending library will be promoted statewide, with additional support and training being provided for educators,” reads the NCEES-funded project description of Britt’s proposed “Library of Surveying and Mapping Hands-on Activities for K-12 Camps and Classrooms.”
By hosting five identical libraries of educational technology kits in each of our distributed, distance education centers that coincide with a Cooperative Extension district, we could serve as many as 1,000 youth simultaneously at 40 locations with the proposed library, Britt said. “The audience of 4-H and K-12 youth in Florida alone is 230,000 youth, which means this is an opportunity to have a significant impact statewide.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Florida has the second-highest estimated employment rate of surveyors in the U.S., with 4,310, second to Texas, which employs 7,530 surveyors. The median annual wage for surveyors was $72,740 in May 2024. The same trend is true for surveying and mapping technicians. Texas employs 7,810 and Florida employs about 4,900 technicians.
“Young people need to know about the excellent employment opportunities in the surveying profession right now,” said Terrell T. “Red” Baker, director of FFGS.
“Students interested in learning a vocation from the ground up can find immediate employment opportunities as a surveying technician, which does not require a college degree. This doesn’t have to, but it often becomes an alternative path to college because many surveying technicians discover they want to go back for a degree or certification, which they can complete at UF.”
Britt said that one of her goals is to create more awareness about the surveying profession. “When we ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, they often answer firefighter, doctor, teacher, etc.,” she said. “We’d like to hear them say ‘surveyor’ but that requires exposure to the idea at a young age.”
Britt added, “The goal is to remove barriers to use for teachers, 4-H clubs, and other youth organizations to introduce various concepts, skills, and applications of surveying to as many youth as possible.”
Britt collaborated with FFGS Graduate and Instructional Designer Alex Perez to come up with a set of lesson ideas along with an outline of the concepts for the project.
“We were also fortunate to get funding from IFAS to hire an intern, Abigail Parmer, an Agricultural Education and Communication major. “Her educational background has been really helpful in formatting the lessons in a way that will be most useful to educators.”
The timeline for having the lesson and technology kits available to access is the fall of 2026. “In that first year, we anticipate reaching over 100 educators and more than 300 youth,” Britt said.
Learn more about the Geomatics Extension program here. Contact Britt at k.britt@ufl.edu or 813-757-2223.