GIS Ed Weekly: Crash Course Tackles Geography

GeoWeek/GIS Day

William and Mary: GIS Day competition & ‘Mappy Thanksgiving’ from the Center for Geospatial Analysis - As part of the CGA’s participation in GIS Day on Nov. 18, the Center hosted a student StoryMap competition. It also hosted a Campus Gratitude Map.

ABC 7: Ryan Miller  (meteorologist, GIS teacher, Penn Stater) explains GIS on GIS Day. Via @RyanMiller_WX.

The Banner (The College of Staten Island): Racial Justice, Social Equity, and Sustainability Shine Through at 15th Annual GIS Day - "CSI’s 15th Annual GIS Day highlighted the pivotal role of mapping technology in establishing sustainability initiatives, pinpointing community trends, and bridging the gap of racial inequities."

ASU: ASU scientists, adventurers, explorers celebrate Geography Awareness Week  - Among the new teaching tools is a video game lab exercise that's part of GPH 111, an introduction to physical geography. In the lab, students use avatars to explore the physical world. 

Bulldog Blog (University of Redlands): U of R GeoWeek highlights tools for public health - "...GeoWeek at the University of Redlands looked different than it has in years past, but participants brought plenty of enthusiasm and curiosity to the virtual events hosted by the Center for Spatial Studies and the Center for Spatial Business." 

UMN: "Watch Carl's lecture on #Geodesign from #gisday https://youtu.be/Q8TnqOs512U" Via @USpatial.

COVID-19 and Election Mapping

Harvard CGA: The Center offers a Tracker for COVID-19 by U.S. congressional districts. Learn more in this news release. Via @harvardCGA.

Washington Post: How much is 250,000 deaths? Enough to empty wide swaths of the country. - The article tries to illustrate the number of dead. I'm not sure the maps work since I don't think too many people have a sense of the size of the population of the counties in the U.S. Via @reSeiber.

WWU: WWU’s Patrick Buckley Analyzing Spread and Regional Patterns of Coronavirus Using Unique Set of Maps Called Cartograms - "Buckley’s coronavirus cartograms are made up of two sets of maps, each with a grim underlying statistic: Cases per 100,000 residents, per state; and total deaths per 100,000 residents per state."

The Guardian: Want to understand the Covid map? Look at where we live and how we work - Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder professor of human geography at Oxford University, explains the patterns.

Towson: TU's Center for GIS takes a deep dive into Maryland's election results - Three weeks after Election Day, Towson University’s Center for GIS, shares "stunning new data maps to get a closer look at the county level."

NBC: Map: Turnout surged in 2020. See the numbers where you live.  - "Turnout increased in every state and all but 56 counties."

Opportunities

Sounds of the Forest: "We are collecting the sounds of woodlands and forests from all around the world, creating a growing soundmap bringing together aural tones and textures from the world’s woodlands." The information collected will be used by musicians to create music for a festival in 2021. Via @theAAG.

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Crash Course Geography - The course started November 30 with the first episode. It's "hosted by Alizé Carrère! This course with be split into two parts. In the first half, we will focus on physical geography or the processes and phenomena of the physical world both above and below the Earth's surface. We'll ask questions like, "why is the seafloor so young when the Earth is so old?" or try to identify why winds and ocean currents are so important to life on Earth. Then we'll turn our focus to human geography and explore the ways people occupy the Earth's surface. Like how we've moved, settled, and used the land, resources and space." The course was originally announced in 2016, but was pulled to be revised. Via Bob Booth.

 

Oregon Public Broadcasting : Indigenous peoples, in Oregon and beyond, are decolonizing maps - "But in more recent history, Western mapmaking has largely focused on demonstrating property ownership and reinforcing power structures. That has led to the widespread erasure of Indigenous people from their traditional lands."

 

CUNY (Journalism): Mapping Black Media - "As part of the Center for Community Media’s (CCM) Black Media Initiative, we’re offering a map and directory of nearly 300 media outlets across the U.S. that primarily serve Black communities across the diaspora. With a national map that includes publications of multiple formats and topics, we are filling a long-existing void."

 

AAG: "Recordings for all 6 of the AAG’s Early Career and Department Leadership fall webinars are now available: http://aag.org/careerwebinars." Via @theAAG.

 

Data
 

National Risk Index: The NRI is an online tool from FEMA that shows the localized risk from 18 different hazards, including social vulnerability and environmental factors. Via Laura Duff on LinkedIn.

USGS: EROS Releases Collection 2, Boosting Cloud Access, Accuracy, Value of Landsat Archive - Landsat Collection-2 was released today! Lots of great new features (e.g. cloud-optimized file format, new QA bands) and improved geolocation accuracy through use of GCPs from the ESA Global Reference Image - further increasing the potential for integrated analysis with Sentinel-2 data!" Via Patrick Griffiths, who is quoted, on LinkedIn.

Programs and Courses

Augustana College: New geospatial science technology minor not just for science majors - "Augustana will offer a new experiential minor in geographic information science and technology beginning in the fall of 2021."

Catawba College: Catawba College Drone Program Takes Flight -  “The [new drone] class fits really well into our new Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Technology minor at Catawba,” says Dr. Andrew Jacobson who built the curriculum. 

People

Exponent (UW-Plattville):  New to the Education Department: Assistant Professor Douglas Adams - Adams, a new member of the education department, earned his Ph.D. in Landscape Geography at UW-Madison in 2020.

Esri

Esri: "We are so impressed by and want to showcase the hard work and creativity of U.S. K-12 teachers using ArcGIS Online. So, we are holding a monthly video challenge." U.S. teachers using Esri tech enter and win cash. Details are available on an ArcGIS Hub page, which sends you to a Survey123 form. Via @GISEd.