GIS Education Weekly: Students Locate Fire Stations, Preserve Musical Heritage and Respond to Disasters

On and Off Campus

Press Release: OSGeo & Google Code-in 2017/2018: a great success to introduce students into the geospatial Open Source community - "OSGeo recently participated for the first time in the Google Code-in. Google Code-in is a contest held each year to introduce pre-university students (ages 13-17) to Open Source software development." Sunveer Singh, center, was a grand prize winner, who worked on GRASS.

Appalachian State: Breece Robertson '00, the 'GIS whiz' at The Trust of Public Land - "Alumna Breece Robertson earned her master’s degree in geography and planning from Appalachian State University in 2000. She joined The Trust for Public Land in 2001 to create a coordinated geographic information systems (GIS) program, and she is now a vice president directing the Planning and GIS team."

EdScoop: Shaping K-12 learning experiences with online mapping activities - Recap of a webinar with Esri's Charlie Fitzpatrick and Loudoun County Public Schools teacher Mike Wagner.

KOBI: Mapping a healthy future for Klamath Falls - "Geomatics professor John Ritter of Oregon Tech is using Geographic Information Systems (G.I.S.) to map out a healthier Klamath Falls. " You can find the maps here.

AAG: AAG Welcomes Two Spring Interns - Two students, from Frostburg State and George Washington University, will work in DC this summer.

Cal Poly SLO: Visualizing Campus Safety with Blue Lights - Students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo helped Esri Beta Test the Campus Blue Light App I mentioned a few weeks back. They presented their story map on Jan 24th 2018 to a group of about 40 Cal Poly faculty, staff, students, and members of the Campus Safety group. Via Esther.

Dearborn Press and Guide: U of M-Dearborn student research, data give insight to Dearborn Fire Department for new location - "Students in Associate Professor Yi-Su Chen’s graduate-level supply chain management course at The University of Michigan-Dearborn are working with the Dearborn Fire Department and Chief Joseph Murray ... to identify the location for an additional fire station. " The team of 11 used GIS along with other tools.

Vanderbilt:  Vanderbilt students help preserve Jefferson Street’s musical history - Rogers Hall, co-director of Vanderbilt’s Space, Learning & Mobility Lab (SLaM) at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development is working with students to preserve the musical heritage of Jefferson Street in Nashville. "The SLaM Lab students are creating what’s called a digital spatial story line, or DSSL, with StoryLiner, an interactive digital mapping app for tablets, desktops and smart phones."

Daily Texan: Intelligence agency getting help from the private sector - The topic was addressed by Robert Cardillo, who heads NGA. He said efforts to acquire data for geospatial intelligence have been made only, until recently, by the government and some large contractors.

Penn State: Doctoral student melds passions for science, helping others in FEMA job - "Doctoral student Adrienne Kramer is leveraging her geography and GIS skills to help improve the Federal Emergency Management Association's response and recovery operations."

Resources

TechReview: Want to Code? You better start teaching yourself - "About 74 percent of software developers are at least partially self-taught. And 25 percent learned to code before they could learn to drive."  Via @TimOReilly.

EdScoop: For schools with 'geoint' programs, geography fills more than just a map - A Virginia school partnered with USGIF to add geography to its teaching and learning.

Discovery Education: February 2018: Finding and citing online images - This post offers a nice reminder of where to find and how to provide attribution for images used in education. This topic has popped up in my work and social media several times over the last week. Not familiar with Discovery Education? "Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12..." Via @CoachingAP.

Financial Times: Financial Times Visual Vocabulary - "A poster (available in English, Japanese, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese) and web site to assist designers and journalists to select the optimal symbology for data visualizations, by the Financial Times Visual Journalism Team." Spatial is in there!

URISA: FAQs - The professional organization offers geospatial fact sheets explaining the Geospatial Data Act, addressing, the 2020 census and more.

Help Out: Complete a Survey!

Maps that Engage and Promote Change Survey: The Spatial Analysis Lab at Smith College is hosting a workshop titled "Maps that Engage and Promote Change" this spring. This survey is for practitioners in cartography, geography, or relevant fields to provide the organizers with insights on critical and multidisciplinary approaches to mapping.

Programs and Courses

EOS: A New Massive Open Online Course on Natural Disasters - The article is really a project update on the McGILL MOOC that first ran in 2014 via EdX. The latest news: "There are plans to license the course in China, and we are also thinking about developing specialized natural disasters MOOCs that would address, for example, the polar regions or the tropics." Also: students contributed to a crowdsourced natural disaster map; a few screenshots are shared in the article.

Temple University's one-year Masters in GIS program is now accepting applications, along with its a graduate certificate in GIS. Via @robertcheetham. Congrats on that Super Bowl thingy, Robert!

UC Riverside offers a six-week "certificate" in GIS, officially called the "Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS Summer Academy)." It costs about $5000 and includes a visit to Esri and the Esri User Conference. A yearlong classroom certificate, "Professional Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS)" costs about the same, has the same pre-requisites and requires an internship. The marketing text I read on LinkedIn: "Professional Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through University of California Riverside Extension. Take a look at scheduling your next class and get Certified!"

LinkedIn: Questions about the GISP Exam Prep Class - Jennifer Harrison discusses the new prep course her company will offer.

People (All women this week)

Lara Bryant, who lead the New Hampshire Geographic Alliance, is leaving Keene State College and her position with the Alliance, according to an e-mail sent last week. She notes: "There have been a lot of changes with both restructuring at the college and National Geographic, and many great things are happening in support of students across the state of NH." Bryant will be hosting a conference call on Monday February 12th at 4:00 pm EST to discuss the future of the Alliance.

Smithsonian: The Woman Who Transformed How We Teach Geography - "By blending education and activism, Zonia Baber made geography a means of uniting—not conquering—the globe." She attended the same undergraduate institution I did; I'd never heard of her.

OpenSource.com: How I coined the term 'open source' - Christine Peterson recounts the story. I did not realize the term was only 20 years old. The idea is older, but the term is just reaching adulthood.

Education News

WaPo: Community colleges teach vocational skills–and a whole lot more - Jeffrey J. Selingo helps the U.S. president, and others, understand what community colleges do in 2018. Via @geotechcenter.

Events

I used to attend NSGIC events regularly. I was surprised to see that this year's midyear event includes a panel discussion on education. “GIS in Computer Science Education” will be presented by Karen Rogers (WY) on Thursday, March 1." Check it out. The event is in Salt Lake City.