GIS Education Weekly: Fourth Graders Learn Precision Ag

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Education Week: Map: How Much Money Each State Spends Per Student - The average is about $13,000.

Spending Per Student

EFF: Stupid Patent of the Month - On April 12, the last day Apple had a store open in Eastern District of Texas the company "was sued by LBS Innovations, LLC, a patent-licensing company owned by two New York patent lawyers, Daniel Mitry and Timothy Salmon. Since it was formed in 2011, LBS has sued more than 60 companies, all in the Eastern District of Texas. Those defendants include some companies that make their own technology, like Yahoo, Waze, and Microsoft, but they’re mostly retailers that use software made by others. LBS has sued tire stores, pizza shops, pet-food stores, and many others, all for using internet-based maps and 'store location' features. LBS has sued retailers that use software made by Microsoft, others that use Mapquest, some that use Google, as well as those that use the open-source provider OpenStreetMaps." I used to cover such suits in my past life writing about the GIS industry; sadly, they are still around.

GIS Education Weekly: Why Learn Open Source Software?

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Daily Mail: Men ARE better than women at reading maps... and it's all thanks to playing with Lego during childhood - Highlights of an article based on research by a professor from Aston University: "Professor Gina Rippon claims playing with Lego helps boys to think differently. She suggests contrasts due to ‘different experiences’ of growing up, not gender. The professor added map-reading is one area where there is a robust difference." @geospatialwomen asked for retweets by women who feel they are better map readers than the men in their lives.

LinkedIn: Why learn an open-source GIS solution? - Christopher Haakon Strutz of OSGIS offers his argument. Reminder: Open source software is commercial software. My advice to students: learn to use lots of different software. Why? Because whatever software (title, version, platform, etc.) you are using in school will most assuredly NOT be what you use further along in your career. You need to learn how to learn software (and programming languages, workflows, etc.) since you'll be using new ones all the time!

GIS Education Weekly: Meet Me in St. Louis

Contests

The U.S. Portion of a Top Three GISCI Contest Map

GISCI: The winners of the 2019 map contest are posted. There were eight entrants.

Applied Geography Conference: The conference, October 23 - 25 in Charlotte, North Carolina, has two student competitions: the "regular" AGC 2019 Student Paper & Poster Competitions (submissions due June 14) and a new Esri & AGC Student Competition using story maps (submissions due June 1).