GIS Education Weekly: Geographer/GIS Specialist Job Posts Grow 31% Year over Year

Resources for Teaching and Learning

SF Gate: Maps compare BART’s footprint to other major transit systems around the world - I find this fun but it's not too helpful for analysis, according to this Twitter thread.

Esri Blog: Ten tips for using Survey123 and Esri Story Maps in your classroom - Mark Francek Professor of Geography at Central Michigan University shares a list. Via Allen Carroll. My favorite: "Some students would rather you solve their problem than having to read the directions. ... we should also harden ourselves in pointing students to specific sections of the exercise where 'the answer' can be found."

AdWeek: How Mountain Dew Turned a Geography Error Into a Source of Love for the Brand - "After mislabeling Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the soda went all in on making it right." After adding the UP to Wisconsin (on a map with room for improvement) the company made a unique bottle for the Yoopers. It's not really a geography story, but a "how to fix it when your brand makes an error."

Esri: Winners of the ISI & Esri Student Competition 2018-2019 - The top three were from Delaware, South Africa and Canada. The story map shows winners among the 47 submitters worldwide.

FOSS4G Bucharest: "For all those that cannot join us from various reasons in a week from now, in Bucharest, we are happy to say that you can tune in to the live streaming of all 11 parallel tracks and of course, the plenary sessions following these links http://streaming.media.ccc.de and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_2Lyc9VUX-jC-E1prJitHw." It appears a live streaming/open source group from Germany is providing the tech and staff to provide live streaming.

Programs and Courses

Delta State: Delta State University Earns United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s First Undergraduate Degree Accreditation - "Singled out for its geospatial analysis and intelligence (GAI) bachelor of applied science (BAS) program, Delta State became the 18th school to receive USGIF accreditation."

Syracuse.com: Onondaga Community College working to add seven new majors by next school year - Among the seven majors selected based on emerging industries in Central New York are Drone Technology and Geospatial Science and Technology. Most of the degrees will be two years. There's already a Public Service Leadership Academy (PSLA) at Fowler High School focusing on geospatial technology, so it's possible there will be a further connection built there.

Jobs

Dice: Mathematicians a Hot Focus of Nationwide Job Postings - Burning Glass has a data product NOVA, which analyzes millions of active job postings. A recent report provides data on job posting changes year over year. Top in growth with 81% is mathematician. Geographer/GIS Specialist is sixth at 31% growth.

c4isrnet.com: Just one third of this intel agency’s workers are women - "...women make up 32 percent of the NGA’s workforce, a figure that has remained steady for the past six years." But note that "four of the seven most senior executives at the NGA are women."

On and Off Campus

Yale:Yale librarian teaches teens interactive mapping at New Haven’s DigiCamp - "For the third summer in a row, Yale GIS (geographic information systems) librarian Miriam Olivares shared her expertise with the participants in New Haven’s annual DigiCamp — a free, three-day coding and computer technology camp for 8th to 12th graders hosted every August by the City of New Haven..."She taught StoryMaps.

APSU: GIS Center student creates 3D-printed tactile campus map for Disability Services - "Austin Peay student Michael Hunter used a 3D printer to create a tactile map of campus for students with low or no vision." Some data: It took 168 hours to print the campus map and seven hours to print the legend.

Hindustan Times: Now IT jobs for Arts students who take ‘geography’ as special subject - "Students from the arts stream who have completed their graduation in ‘geography’ as a special subject can now get jobs in IT (information sector) companies which offer good salary packages. These jobs are related to data management and Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping at various multi-national companies." The article makes it seem this is a new idea.

University of Denver: Undergraduate Research Keeps Campus Thriving During Summer Months - Geography major Nic Tarasewicz, funded by the Undergraduate Research Center’s summer grant program, examined the relationship between urban street trees and pollution. He heads to Sweden’s Lund University as DU’s first geography student to participate in its Global Masters 3+1+1 program. There, he’ll complete his undergrad degree as well as a masters.

Quote of the Week

A student, via Twitter:

... alas, I have to take a mandatory course on ArcGIS. That's something I will only be taking for academic credit - plus, my home machines all use Linux as a primary OS.