GIS Ed Weekly: Elections, Dinosaurs, and Minecraft

Resources for Teaching and Learning

CNN: These maps show how 2020 could come down to 1 electoral vote - Four maps show one candidate wins by two and one shows a tie.

 

NYTimes: Creating New Boundaries Where Journalism and Geography Meet - How Tim Wallace made his latest map, the one about green and gray.

 

Reddit/GIS: For my Bachelor thesis I recreated my hometown in Minecraft by using real spatial data - There's a discussion on whether this is scientific enough to qualify as a thesis. 

 

TampaBay.com: Targeted - Per Brain Timoney: "Required reading for any of us who have ever made a crime map." Via @briantimoney.

 

Lifehacker: Use This Map to Find Out Which Dinosaurs Lived in Your Area - Here's the app with paleogeographic maps from C.R. Scotese and visualization by Ian Webster. Lifehacker provides instructions on how to use it, if needed.

Programs and Courses

 

WVIR: ACPS receives grant for students to lead historical research project  - The National Geographic Society granted Albemarle County Public Schools a $50,000 grant to explore contemporary and historical challenges. They use  "geospatial technologies - so interactive web maps, GPS units, digital media, 360 cams - and the students are going to help us create a community asset map..."

 

St. Louis Business Journal: Inside Webster University’s plan to boost MBA enrollment during a nationwide decline (subscription required) - The school also offers a Remote Sensing Analysis and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) Graduate Certificate.

 

Penn State: Geodesign program launches video series to raise awareness - "The Geodesign graduate program, offered online via Penn State’s World Campus, has launched a series of video shorts aimed at educating people about the discipline and its growing role in providing a transformative method to solve land-use challenges around the globe." The videos are on the geodesign YouTube channel. 

 

COVID-19 Maps and News

 

The Miami Student: Miami professor retires amid COVID-19 pandemic - Geography and Western Program professor Dr. Hays Cummins had been in the department since 1988.

 

EdSurge: Back to School or Back to Remote Learning? Depends on Where You Live - There are no maps, but the text offers, "Rural Districts More Likely to Offer In-Person Learning, Choice."

 

WCF Courier - UNI ARCTICenter to research pandemic response among indigenous Arctic people - "The UNI Department of Geography, the ARCTICenter and the GeoTREE Center received a nearly $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation."

 

MCH Strategic Data: COVID-19 IMPACT: School District Status Updates for Fall 2020  - There are no data sources noted and some of the data was "last updated" back in July. Via a GIS User press release dated Aug 19. 

 

UNCO: Research Indicates Emergence of COVID-19 Spatial Patterns in Colorado - An article in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Publish Health illustrates that positive COVID-19 cases and deaths emerged and intensified in mountain communities west of Denver and in urban areas along the Front Range. 

 

People

UCLA: Marilyn Raphael takes helm at UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability - Marilyn Raphael, professor of geography, is the new interim director of UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She helped found the institute in the 1990s.

MIT News: Sarah Williams: Applying a data-driven approach to help cities function - "MIT Associate Professor Sarah Williams conducts data-heavy urban research, which can then be expressed in striking visualizations, ideally generating public interest. She has also worked with other scholars on topics including criminal justice, the environment, and housing." Via Michael Parkin.

Meanwhile in Our Industry

 

Forbes: Huawei Finally Launches Brilliant Google Alternative - It's interesting that the title does not mention Google Maps since article reviews HERE WeGo and TomTom Go Navigation. Via Ashley Marie Cashion (What3Words) and Louis Debatte-Monroy (TomTom).

Bloomberg: Siemens Considers Bentley Systems Bid in New Digital Push - "Purchase would mark renewed move into software for Siemens  Bentley has more than 3,500 staff and $700 million in revenue"

 

KOREM: Joe Francica Named Senior Director of KOREM’S Geospatial Strategy - This is mostly for those who've been reading my newsletters over the years.

 

Events 

 

The Appalachian State University Department of Geography and Planning Speaker Series: Finding Our Way Back: Examining the Geography of the Black Past - Mike Williams will speak Thursday, October 22, 2020 at 3:30 p.m. via Zoom: This talk is free and open to the public.
 

AAG: AAG Pilot Workshops - "The American Association of Geographers is piloting 2 workshops next week that may be of particular interest to the experiences of graduate students during COVID-19. The pilot is the first phase of a new AAG program meant to support graduate students in adapting their research to this new virtual reality." Each one has a pre-recorded lecture one day and live meeting (with limited seating) on a second day. I confess that I don't understand the reference to "virtual reality."

For Students

There's a new scholarship program (opening 2021) to encourage and support Black African, Caribbean, Black or mixed Black heritage students in the study of geography and geoscience. The scholarships will be open for applications on January 15th 2021 from UK based students. Via @blackgeogorg.