AAG Grants for Geography Career Outreach and other Education GIS News
The AAG, through the Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) project funded by NSF, announces a grant program to support outreach, professional training, and related activities aimed at improving [student] awareness of and preparation for business, government, and nonprofit careers in geography.
Twenty-four awards of $500 are available and will be granted on a competitive basis to support activities that address one or more of the following priority areas of the AAG’s EDGE project.
Examples of what activities might be covered is telling; I can think of probably a dozen people I know who should submit proposals:
- Organizing a professional development workshop at an AAG regional or annual meeting;
- Planning an outreach event in collaboration with a careers center on a school or university campus with significant numbers of underrepresented students;
- Preparing a proposal for an undergraduate or graduate course, seminar, instructional module or webinar on professional development in geography;
Applications are due July 1 for acitivities planned for Sept 2012-July 2013.
Norman Oklahoma is putting "GPS radios" in its school busses. That way school officials can track them and hopefully adjust routes if tornados pop up as one did earlier this year while students were being dropped off at bus stops. One problem still remains that was not addressed in the $25,000 purchase:
But, 24 minutes after the release, the twister hit. The district says communication with buses was iffy.
I hope someone is thinking about that problem, too. It's unclear how these new radios work or how it will make them more likey to function when cell towers are down.
- News 9
Bigfork High School (Montana), its cave club and its GIS program are in the news again. GIS, last year only taught to high schoolers will now be taught to seventh graders.
Sadly, GIS software is still considering difficult:
“The software is very difficult to learn,” Rea said. “We try to break it down for them.”
Denny Rea introduced GIS to the Cave Club, who many met after a few students presented at Esri UC in 2010.
