Salisbury GIS Student “Rock Stars” and other Education GIS News

Salisbury University Geographic Information Systems students were recently dubbed “rock stars” by some Maryland legislators.

They created large, full-color maps of land use in each of Maryland’s new legislative districts for all 188 state senators and delegates.

The school last made such maps six years ago. They are available for downloading and printing. The locator map is from ArcGIS.com but the indivdual ones are PDFs.

- DelMarva Now

C|net rewrote a tutorial from LifeHacker that details how to make a "crowdsourced food review map" for just you and your friends. It uses Google's MyMap. I thought i might be valuable to some educators.

- C|net

The Enterprise for Innovative Geospatial Solutions (EIGS) partnered with Digital Quest, a geospatial education and certification organization. The result:

The State of Florida recently adopted the “S.P.A.C.E.” (Spatial Projects and Community Exchange) certification series created by Digital Quest and sponsored by EIGS. Florida included these new Geospatial certifications as part of its 2012-13 approved condensed “Comprehensive Industry Certification List” for the state’s Career and Professional Education (CAPE) Act.

- press release

New “Easy to Follow” Google Maps Dev Tools and other Google Geo News

Google appears to be fighting back [fight OSM, others]. On Tuesday [today] it will announce two new sites aimed at encouraging developers of all skill levels to use its maps for location services and mobile applications. One of the sites has easy-to-follow directions, while the other is a gallery of things people have built with Google Maps.

I don't find the "easy to follow directions" just yet.

- NY Times

Released today [March 14], the newest version of Google Earth for Android and iOS adds a long-awaited feature that should make the mobile mapping experience more like that on the desktop: KML file support.

KML, or Keynote Markup Language, is a file format used to display geographic data in the Google Earth browser. The format can be used by anyone to create and distribute custom map overlays on the Web.

It's pretty sad that the news detailed on the Google Lat Long Blog got so muddled in the Cnet's coverage above. KML is Keyhole Markup Language; it's an open format (sorry encoding standard) now managed by OGC.

- C|net

Montana Redistricting Maps and other Government GIS News

After detailing how officials want citizen input on the new district proposal for Montana, there's a rather scary discussion of how ot access the maps in Google Map and Google Earth. That would be enough to put me off looking any further.

- Billings Gazette

An interactive map that is meant to make it more user-friendly for the residents of the RM [Rural Municipality] of East St. Paul [Manitoba, CA] to access municipal information is nearing completion after over two-years of hard work.

The recreation map looks like an ArcGIS.com template implementation.

- Selkirk Journal

From the City of Greenville, S.C. GIS Division with support from the City’s Parks and Recreation Department and the Greenville County Recreation District comes an interactive map and mobile app of the Swamp Rabbit Trail. The includes data on ATM's, bathrooms and parking places along the 13.5 mile route. It runs via ArcGIS.com and requires the download for use on mobile devices. The sources on the basemap read:

Sources: Esri, DeLorme, NAVTEQ, TomTom, Intermap, iPC, USGS, FAO, NPS, NRCAN, GeoBase, IGN, Kadaster NL, Ordnance Survey, Esri Japan, METI, Esri China (Hong Kong), and the GIS User Community

I wonder how well the general public will take ot these ArcGIS.com based maps. 

- TrTribune.com

Relocating the Hollywood Sign for GPS Navigation Purposes

To keep traffic from residential areas and to prevent drivers from getting lost, Garmin and Google have relocated it to route drivers to viewing areas.

- Contra Costa Times

EAST Students Map Hospital and other Education GIS News

By request from the local SWAT team, students in the EAST Lab Program at Paragould High School [AR] are working on a huge project. They are constructing digitized maps, floor-by-floor, of a local hospital to better assist officers in handling an emergency situation.

- KAIT

Complaints from parents about schools manipulating the distance from home to school to give preference to some students in some schools has led a few schools to use Google Maps as a measurement tool.

“It’s the most transparent way to ascertain the distance between the school and the residence of a child. We have also adopted other methods including taking a declaration from the parents over their claims of the distance,” [Ashok] Pandey [principal of Ahlcon International School in Mayur Vihar] told PTI.

The tool used for the measurement and if the measurement is crow flies or along roads is not clear.

- FirstPost

Darren and Sandy Van Soye will spend the next 14 months travelling the world and teaching geography per a press release from Pricess Cruises.

The couple, who are chronicling their journey at www.TrekkingthePlanet.net, were inspired to plan their trek after they saw first-hand what a positive impact a previous family trip around the globe had on their two daughters' lives. Their full travel itinerary incorporates five different Princess Cruises voyages, totaling 96 days at sea. Both the first and last legs of their journey, plus three legs in between, will be aboard a Princess cruise ship.  ...

In total, the Van Soyes' journey will cover 50 countries on six continents over the course of the 424-day world tour. Throughout their travels, the couple will share 60 different geography education modules they have created as well as pictures and videos of their travels for anyone in the world to use. So far more than 700 classrooms around the world will be following their travels, representing 50,000 students.

Would you use such a resource in your teaching?

- press release

The Geographical Sciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy aims to support the development of geographical studies throughout the island of Ireland. Following on from this we are pleased to provide an introductory resource [pdf] on the geography of climate justice prepared by the Committee (with support from the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency) for dissemination to geography students across Ireland. The resource is intended for use with transition year students in the Republic and for students from GCSE level upwards in Northern Ireland. 

Royal Irish Academy via @theaag