Education Tidbits

Students from several schools in New Providence and the Family Islands gathered to celebrate the 7th GIS Day in The Bahamas. The event, which was held under the theme, “Exploring our world and our environment with GIS, was held at the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium on Friday, January 28.

- Bahama Islands Info

Very Spatial lists a few new free education resources from Esri.

- Very Spatial

I’m using some new technology in my Trends in Geospatial Technology course in the MGIS program at Penn State. PSU did an article about my use of VoiceThread as I prep a paper for the upcoming Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference in March. I’m very excited Clay Shirky is doing the keynote.

- Teaching and Learning with Technology (PSU)

Local GIS Tidbits

Snyder County [PA] saved more than $40,000 last year by replacing two employees with a GIS company contract, and the commissioners are looking to continue those savings in 2011. They approved on Tuesday a $56,000 contract with GIS Tech Solutions Inc. to provide on-site GIS support services to the county.

- Daily Item

"If you’ll notice, the Town of Wellesley’s website has a new interface and new features. Brian DuPont, GIS manager for the town of Wellesley, designed the site and presented it to the Board of Selectmen at the same Monday meeting." It's very nice. I wonder how many GIS managers could layout a website?

- Wellesley [MA] Patch

Soon four of the five incorporated villages in Meigs County [Ohio] will have portions of its infrastructure digitally mapped as part of the new community based Geographic Information System (GIS) program offered by Buckeye Hills. Racine was the first community to participate in the program and received the services free of charge in exchange for being a “test community” — these “test communities” were a sort of template for the program, including the Village of Syracuse. The Villages of Pomeroy and Middleport have recently signed up for the GIS services though there is now a fee involved for the program — $2,000 plus $500 a year to maintain the service. What is mapped is up to the villages and could be anything from water lines, to storm sewers, to gas lines, to water meters, etc.

- Pomeroy Daily Sentinel

Continue reading...

Health GIS Tidbits

I saw my first ad for a medication that had a geographic warning. I couldn’t find the exact drug, but this one is comparable: CIMZIA’s warnings include notifying your doctor if you:

Live or have lived in certain parts of the country (such as the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys) where there is an increased risk for getting certain kinds of fungal infections (histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis, blastomycosis). These infections may develop or become more severe if you take CIMZIA. If you do not know if you have lived in an area where histoplasmosis, coccidioidomycosis, or blastomycosis is common, ask your doctor.

- CIMZIA website

The San Diego Foundation awarded $328,000 to six grantees on Feb. 3. The philanthropic support of the county’s aging adults is made possible through the Del Mar Healthcare Fund held at the Foundation. “San Diego State University will receive $28,000 to develop a GIS-based map that will enable agencies to understand the demographics in their service areas and reach out to older adults in areas not currently served by any agency. “

- Del Mar Times

The UK’s Herts Community Trust launched a map of health services at www.hertschs.nhs.uk this week, where users can tap on districts to access information about every NHS service available there. I suspect it will not crash like the UK crime map launched this week.

- The Comet

Quote of the Week

“All of the states where we’re a leader, where we’re the No. 1 insurer, are red states. All of the states where we’re at the bottom are blue states.”

- American International Group’s chief executive Robert Benmosche explaining how the company did better in Republican-leaning states in the Washington Post.