GIS Ed Weekly: Making Art Instead of Maps in Geography Class

On and Off Campus 

Work by geography student Myles Peeters

Simon Fraser: Geography students discover the healing power of art - Last semester SFU geography instructor Sharla Stolhandske asked "students to create drawings, paintings, poetry or music to express their ideas for how to make sense of our changing world. She wanted them to discover that art could not only help them engage on topics in a different way, but could also improve how they manage their mental and emotional well-being."  

 

Florida State:  FSU communication, engineering researchers awarded grant to study natural disaster response - "FSU researchers are helping to develop operational procedures for public libraries during natural disasters through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services." On the team is AMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor Eren Erman Ozguven who "hopes to establish a GIS module that gives librarians the ability to see where vulnerable populations are located and distinguish the resource that is most accessible to them."

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Journal of Geography: Transitioning from Emergency Remote Learning to Deep Online Learning Experiences in Geography Education - Schultz and DeMers' paper "provides perspectives to this unfortunate circumstance [teaching online due to COVID-19], describes positive and negative aspects of the experiences, presents best practices for deep online learning, and challenges geography educators to learn how instructional design for online courses can be leveraged. The goal is to provide a forum for online learning in geography education."

GhanaWeb: Why Ghana must embrace Geography as a core subject in our educational curriculum - "A characteristic culture of developed countries like the USA, Canada, Germany, among many others, is that they have all embraced Geography education in their countries. It will be in our first-class interest as Ghanaians, and Africans, to embed Geography education at all levels." The author Michael Atuahene Djan is a Research and Teaching Assistant at British International School, Ghana.  

NPR: Longtime Climate Science Denier Hired At NOAA - David Legates, a professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware, was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. 

 

The Daily Beast: How Geography on the Crossword Grid Can Teach You A Thing or Two - "There are some all-time favorites while some have disappeared in the world and on the grid."

CNN: New book 'Atlas of Extinct Countries' explores the places that fell off the map - "The Atlas of Extinct Countries" by writer Gideon Defoe, suggests the reason for their demise isn't always a result of international diplomacy, brinkmanship or a peace treaty.

COVID-19 Mapping

Zenger: Women Data Scientists Created GPS-Driven App to Help Kenya Keep Covid-19 Numbers Low - "Test data, GPS coordinates and contact tracing help an innovative project spot outbreaks in real time." This article is from Zenger News, which unlike other publications which ran the story, includes the author's name.

Reuters: Volunteer armies map 'invisible' communities hit by coronavirus - Hundreds of volunteers who otherwise mark roads and bridges on OpenStreetMap (OSM) added more than 1,100 Indonesia handwashing stations.

USA Today: New coronavirus map helps parents determine risk level of Halloween activities in their area - "The Halloween & Costume Association and Harvard Global Health Institute released a color-coded map that shows coronavirus risk levels by county to help guide families on how to safely celebrate Halloween. Counties fall into one of four risk levels, calculated on a seven-day rolling average of daily cases per 100,000 population."

NPR: Map: Mail-In Voting Rules By State - Five states require a reason beyond COVID-19 to request a mail-in ballot.

Programs and Courses

Springfield News-Sun: Clark State adding certificate in unmanned aircraft systems -  "Though the community college has already incorporated drones into its Geospatial program in previous years, the fall semester for 2020 is the first time a certificate geared towards unmanned aircraft systems will be offered."

 

For Students

Penn State: The Founders’ Scholarship Fund in the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute provides scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in or planning to enroll at least part-time in an online academic program offered by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences through Penn State World Campus. First preference is given to individuals within this pool who are employees of Esri. Applications are due by Oct 15, 2020. Recipients will be announced by November 1, 2020. I'm biased as both a Penn State alumna and Esri employee, among other connections to the school, program and funders, but this is very cool!

Esri

 

Esri - 2020 Esri Development Center Students of the Year - This program, the Esri Development Center Program for universities. will soon be renamed to Esri Innovation Program. Each center this year, and going forward, selects a student to be student of the year. This story reviews their work.

Esri (GeoNet): Retiring of EVA codes (separate 1-year student licenses) - If you are not onboard with named user licensing, it's time to check it out. As an admin of 90K+ named users across four organizations, I would not use anything else.

Esri (GeoNet): Using GIS to Create and Give Quizzes - Joseph Kerski offers some samples of how to include quiz questions in and using GIS.  

Events

URISA: GIS Community Anticipating Remarks from #GISPro2020 Keynote Speakers - The speakers in question are Martin O'Malley, Author and Former Governor of Maryland, Chris Vaughan, Geographic Information Officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Juliana Blackwell, Director of the National Geodetic Survey. "URISA is pleased to offer a free registration option to hear and watch these speakers deliver their talks 'live'."

Meanwhile in our Industry

Bentley: Bentley Systems Announces Launch of Initial Public Offering - Bentley Systems Inc. expects to raise up to $204.25 million by offering 10.75 million Class B shares in at a price between $17 and $19 a share. The stock is expected to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "BSY."