Yesterday David DiBiase, in his role as as a "project advisor" with the GeoTech Center, shared the news on Facebook that National Science Foundation declined to provide the center with a second round of funding. The four years of funding ran 2008-2012 under award 0801893. (My colleague Joe Francica is also an advisor on the project.)
The GeoTech Center review meeting began this morning with the disappointing news that NSF declined to renew the Center’s funding for an additional four years. PI Philip Davis received the Program Officer’s email late last night.
It's certainly a setback for community colleges and for the entire GIS education community. GeoTech is the closest thing we’ve had to an organization comparable in scale to NCGIA but wholly dedicated to geospatial education and training. Still, whether the GeoTech Center rebounds or not, some of its initiatives are too important to forsake. First and foremost, the GTCM needs to be updated, curated, and promoted—with or without NSF support. Now the task facing me and other project advisers is to help the team regroup, re-prioritize, and rethink next steps.
This is an unfortunate loss of funding; there is still much work to be done.
by Adena Schutzberg on 02/09 at 04:12 AM |
Comments |
Kurt Menke will be showing of his FOSS GIS course at the FOSS4G Workshop for Educators at the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference (FOSS4G) in Denver, Colorado this fall. It is, per Kurt, "one of the only FOSS GIS curricula in the United States and is titled "Introduction to Open Source GIS and Web Mapping. He teaches it at Central New Mexico Community College. Kurt and I agree that in today's marketplace knowing more than just Esri is important.
- GeoTech Blog
- application (seems to be free, but there are also travel stipends)
NSF is funding more efforts to combat the lack of geographic literacy in US kids.
The National Geographic Society has received a two-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Establishing a Road Map for Large-Scale Improvement of K-12 Education in the Geographical Sciences." National Geographic and three national organizations — the Association of American Geographers, the American Geographical Society and the National Council for Geographic Education — will work together in an unprecedented effort to develop a 10-year strategic plan for geographic education in the United States.
- Nat Geo PR (AAG had one, too)
Manish Arora, 18, wants to pursue geography in college. He's handicapped, so was asked register in the Physically Handicapped category in Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (Dehli University). But somewhere, someone got the idea that since he can't do the field work (mountaineering) he should not be admitted. It sounds like clearer thinking will be applied and he'll be admitted, but it's a sad day for that school.
- IBN Live
by Adena Schutzberg on 06/21 at 03:40 AM |
Comments |
Narrow your search further:
aag,
education,
field work,
foss4g,
grant,
handicapped students,
india,
nat geo,
ncge,
nsf,
open source
