About GIS Day

GIS Day Watch - September 2007

In This Issue

GIS Day 2007 Registration Challenge Winners

GIS Day is Wednesday, November 14, 2007. We wish to thank everyone who participated in the GIS Day Registration Challenge, announced in the last issue of GIS Day Watch. The following participants were among the first 10 to register their events and were awarded complimentary GIS Day T-shirts. Congratulations and thank you!

Rita Amenaghawmon Ehima
Virgin Nigeria Airways, Nigeria

Natasjia Geldenhuys
City of Cape Town, South Africa

Gurugnanam B
Annamalai University, India

Valdas Krisciunas
Lietuvos dujos Siauliai branch, Lithuania

Nina-Maarit Laitinen
ESRI Finland Oy, Finland

Steve McCarville
St. Pius X/St. Leo School, Nebraska

Omoha Naison Mbalame
Malawi

Steve Palladino
Ventura College, California

Kathleen Peila
Notre Dame de Namur University, California

Bolaji Taiwo
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Afghanistan

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New GIS Day Shirts

Newly designed, brightly colored polo shirts, adult shirts, and youth shirts are now available in the GIS Day Gear store to promote GIS Day to event participants and visitors. Many other ready-to-use materials are also available.

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GIS Day Resources

More about Asia
Getting ready for GIS Day 2007? This year's Geography Action theme is Asia. Check facts, maps, and photo galleries about Asia and Asian countries.

National Geographic Society's Geography Action is a yearlong initiative that encompasses key educational achievements such as GIS Day and Geography Awareness Week. Each year has a different geographic focus to explore and understand. The theme of 2006-2007, Africa, started a five-year, around-the-world program, with a focus on Asia in 2007-2008. Geography Awareness Week is celebrated the third week of each November and starts the Geography Action Year, which ends the following November.

New Mapping Center Web Site
Visit ESRI's new Mapping Center for tips on how to design and create high-quality maps and make decisions about symbols, annotations, color ramps, and much more. Check out the Maps section to view sample maps, which display a wide variety of cartographic techniques and effects. This site can also be a useful resource if you are planning a GIS Day event for professionals to support them in mapmaking or to demonstrate to non-GIS users the art and science of making maps. Learn more.

Support the Teaching Geography Is Fundamental Act
Geography is essential to understanding today's interconnected world, but our kids aren't getting enough of it. Let your lawmakers know that you support geography education and urge them to do so as well. The Action Alert tool on My Wonderful World facilitates e-mailing local politicians to support the Teaching Geography Is Fundamental (TGIF) Act. There is an editable text field, and with just a few clicks, you can help send an important public message! Learn more about the TGIF Act and follow its status.

Statetris
If you are a Tetris fan and are looking for a fun way to learn to locate states and countries, you might enjoy Statetris, an interesting game that mixes aspects of the popular video game Tetris with geography. Instead of positioning the typical Tetris blocks, you position states/countries at their proper location. If you have no trouble locating the states on the U.S. map, try your skills with Statetris-Africa and Statetris-Europe.

Chance to Beat the National Geographic Bee
Keep your geography knowledge up-to-date by answering 10 questions from the National Geographic Bee every day! Consider incorporating GeoBee Quiz questions into your GIS Day celebration.

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Featured Events

GIS Day in Jamaica - A Weeklong Celebration!
The Spatial Data Management Division of the Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture and Lands will put on a weeklong GIS Day program this year for Geography Awareness Week, November 12-16.

Highlights include an executive session with the theme "GIS Unlocking Business Potential," and a GIS expo at the University of the West Indies Mona. Schools from across Jamaica are invited to attend the GIS expo. Government organizations and GIS users will have display booths, discuss career opportunities, and lead activities including a GIS bee, a school map competition, and a GIS treasure hunt.

The week will conclude with an awards banquet, recognizing individuals and institutions that have made significant contributions to the development of GIS and spatial technologies in Jamaica. Learn more.

Geo-spatial Information Technology Internship Program: "We have our hands on technology"
The Geo-spatial Information Technology Internship Program for high school scholars and college undergraduates at University of Maryland - Eastern Shore (UMES) aims to provide students, especially minorities, with a basic knowledge of GIS, GPS, and RS. The interns learn how to be computer-age cartographers and use data and scientific knowledge to solve real-world problems. Founders and supporters of this unique program believe that dedicated young scholars with GIS skills and experience will be more successful in their collegiate careers and the global job market.

Learn more about the projects prepared by high school students this summer for the Sixth Annual Geospatial Information Technology Internship Program.

Read about other GIS Day events and register your event! See ready-to-use materials and gift ideas for your event.

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GIS in Action

World Ball Project - A Basketball Coach Promotes Geographic Literacy
Jim Larranga, basketball coach at George Mason University, has been administering geography quizzes at his basketball camps for years. This summer, he took his passion for promoting geographic literacy to a new level. With the help of Mason's geography department chair Allan Falconer, Coach L. developed the World Ball an NCAA-regulation basketball that is also a globe providing a correct scale representation of the location and areas of the continents.

Mason partnered with the National Geographic Society and ESRI to ensure the ball is both an accurately scaled globe and an official NCAA basketball. "This is a fun tool to help kids realize that geography is important, that education comes first," says Larranga. "We've gotten such a tremendous response from the quizzes that I hope physical education and social studies teachers in elementary and middle schools can do this kind of program in their own schools."

Falconer hopes to draw attention to the importance of geography in our technology-driven society. Over the last five years, enrollment at Mason has increased in the undergraduate geography degree program by 50 percent and in the master's degree program by 35 percent. "Geography is not just about reading maps - geography students are now being hired in the government sector, engineering firms, nonprofit organizations, and science fields," says Falconer. It seems like George Mason University has definitely put GIS in action!

Read more about this great idea in the Washington Post, the Mason Gazette, and on My Wonderful World Blog. For more information, call Jennifer Maloney at 703-993-1210 or e-mail jmaloney@gmu.edu.

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ESRI UC Abstracts Due Soon

Share your innovative GIS ideas and solutions. Submit a paper for the 2008 ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC), August 4-8, 2008, in San Diego, California. By presenting your paper, you will help stimulate discussion and the exchange of ideas. Submit your presentation. The deadline is November 2, 2007.

Consider submitting a paper based on your GIS Day event. Check out this paper, Successful Single Agency Planning of a Large Scale GIS Day, presented at the 2007 ESRI UC.

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