GIS Day Activities

GIS Day 2008
November 19, 2008

Ohio URISA - 

For the past 9 years, Delaware County GIS team has been visiting various schools within Delaware County educating students of various ages about GIS, Geography and GIS Day. This year, the GIS office held an open house, a map gallery, and several informational slide shows and games in the County's Hayes Service Administration Building. Over 250 students from Schultz and Conger Elementary Schools and Willis Middle School participated in the event. Volunteers from several other entities such as Delaware Soil & Water Conservation District, Delaware General Health District, and City of Dublin attended and/or presented.

On November 20th two members of the GIS team, Nelda Sisler and Tara Bennett, headed south to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio to help a non profit organization called Caching Our World. The event was held November 18-20, 2008 and was a collaborative effort between Miami University, Caching Our World, and many other volunteers including two members of the Delaware County GIS team. 

http://www.dalisproject.org/pages/gisday2008.htm 

Florida URISA -  FLURISA participated in GIS Day activities at the USF – St. Petersburg Campus event. They made the local news too…

City of Austin, TX - City of Austin's Newest GIS Day Song ROCKS the crazy GIS world! See GIS people can be fun and entertaining!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1iPe0LtCew
 

Jamaica - The Land Information Council of Jamaica (LICJ) in collaboration with the University of the West Indies (UWI) will be streaming GIS Day 2008 activities live from the UWI campus on Wednesday November 19, 2008 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.  This feed can be accessed via the UWI home page at www.uwimona.edu.jm or directly at http://tv.mona.uwi.edu/ .

• UNC University Library & Department of Geography
• Albemarle Regional GIS Users Group
• City of Salisbury, NC
• NCSU Libraries & NCSU Campus GIS Users Group
• Western Carolina University GIS Day
• CharMeck GIS Day - Mecklenburg Co., NC GIS, UNC-Charlotte, Central Piedmont Community College, City of Charlotte, NC, Public Library of Charlotte, Mecklenburg & Cabarrus County Economic Development

Georgia URISA Activities -

GIS Day at Gwinnett County- Join us for map displays, presentations and application demonstrations!

Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center- Auditorium
75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, GA 30045
770-822-8036

Wednesday, November 19th
1:00pm - 4:00pm

GIS Day at Georgia State University
Department of Geosciences, Georgia State University, 316 Kell Hall

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
11:00AM-01:30PM

• 11-11:30 - Dr. Lawrence Kiage/Geosciences - Monitoring the summer maxima of duckweed blooms in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela using MODIS data: 2003-2006.
• 11:30-12 - Dr. Kimberlee Elmore/CDC - GIS, HIV/AIDS and the CDC (or, What in the world is a geographer doing at the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, CDC ?)
• 12-12:30 - Dr. Hassan Babaie/Geosciences - Representation of spatial knowledge with ontologies
• 12:30-1 - Shankar Pokharel - Landuse/Landcover classification of metro Atlanta area using ILWIS.
• 1-1:30 - Dr. David McDonald/CIS - Emerging Technologies: What New Students are Expecting in the Classroom.

Additional Information: http://monarch.gsu.edu/GISDay08

Contact: geospp@langate.gsu.edu

________________________________________

GIS Day at Augusta State University

Who:

• Augusta State University (Political Science Club and Pi Alpha Alpha Chapter)
• Columbia County Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Department
• City of Augusta Information Technology GIS Division

What:

• Celebrate International GIS Day
• What is GIS? A geographic information system is a system used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and display all types of spatially referenced geographic information about locations of interest on the earth's surface and how they relate to each other. By visualizing relationships, connections, and patterns in data, the user can make informed decisions and increase efficiency throughout the organization. Please see ESRI.com or GIS.com for more in-depth information.

When:

• November 19, 2008 12:00-3:00pm

Where:

• Augusta State University, Jaguar Student Activities Center (JSAC) - JSAC Ballroom

The Augusta State University (ASU) Political Science Club and ASU'™s Pi Alpha Alpha Chapter are celebrating international GIS Day November 19th, 12-3 in the JSAC Ballroom. Community leaders will kickoff the event and discuss the importance of GIS in our communities.

The Columbia County GIS Department and the City of Augusta Information Technology GIS Division will be offering hands-on demonstrations of their property search tools within their GIS Maps Online and Martinez Columbia Fire and Rescue will demonstrate how they use GIS in Emergency Response.

They will also be displaying maps showing how GIS is used in our community, providing information on how Geographic Information Systems are utilized to answer questions that lead to quicker decision making. Maps will be available for Columbia County, Augusta Public Transit Bus Routes, Augusta Canal and National Heritage Area, and more

What is GIS? About 15,500 years ago, on the walls of caves near Lascaux, France, Cro-Magnon hunters drew pictures of the animals they hunted. Associated with the animal drawings are track lines and tallies thought to depict migration routes. While simplistic in comparison to modern technologies, these early records mimic the two-element structure of modern geographic information systems (or GIS for short). GIS links images and data in a unique way that can be used to evaluate the status of an endangered species, plan community growth, track the progress of disaster search and rescue missions, and predict the impact of pollution.

The day opens with a presentation by Anil T. Mangla, MS.,PH.D., MPH Epidemiologist for GA Dept of Human Resources and Forrest Staley, MUP, MPHc Program Director Georgia Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs. With GIS they actually discovered that lead poisoning in Hispanic communities was not coming from lead paint in old houses but from candy from Mexico. Without GIS they would not have made this discovery. Vendors, hands-on displays, and prizes will also be available. So please come and see what technology can do!

SoCal URISA has been working with a local community college (Palomar College) to set up a GIS day event- flier and schedule are attached. We will be there to present on project topics, participate in a panel discussion, and recruit students to join our chapter. Some faculty will be present to discuss the benefit of a GIS education at Palomar, and students will present their project work and posters. Special thanks to Blanca Quintero for producing our newsletter in time to share at the event, and Amy Storey (and Nolte) for sponsoring the event by purchasing food. Have fun everyone!

From Lynn Dupont at LA URISA:

In honor of GIS Day, Louisiana officially completed its state-wide lidar project which began in 1999.  We now have lidar coverage of the entire state.