Resources for Teaching and Learning
 NOAA: When to Expect the “Coldest Day of the Year” - "To give you a better idea of the coldest time of year for your area, NCEI has created a 'Coldest Day of the Year' map."
LINZ: Virtual Field Trip - "Teachers, students, home school parents, join our March 2020 Virtual Field Trip to learn all about the Climate Change Science, Evidence, Data and what you can do as part of the response." The link is to an ArcGIS StoryMap that provides more information. Via Duane Wilkins on LinkedIn.
URISA: Fact Sheet on Geospatial Careers - Feel free to provide URISA with any suggestions you might want to share at info@urisa.org. I already did.
UWO: Faculty commencement address: Navigating new maps - "Angela G. Sublwa, geography department chair, delivered the following faculty address at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh’s 2019 midyear commencement ceremony." It's got some nice geographic references!
 Visual Capitalist (blog): Invisible Stars: Mapping America's Rural Light Pollution - This is a detailed exploration of Tim Wallace's map.
Education News
Times Higher Education (THE) (blog): Geography degrees are preparing disadvantaged students for relevant careers - Two geographers challenge Dorling's allegations, which I noted a few weeks back, of geography being a "soft option" for students.
Phil on EdTech: US Higher Education Enrollment Trends by Distance Education Type, 2012-2018 - That's Phil Hill and the data are interesting!
Twitter: This tweet from a high school teacher provokes mixed emotions. I'm happy we are sensitive to student mental health issues; I'm sad we need to be.
Twitter: Matt Wilson shares that "Preliminary analysis of enrollment data @universityofky seems to indicate that if you have taken #APHG, you are **less likely** to take other classes in the Department of Geography." Follow the thread for data indicating the opposite.
Richmond (VA) Times Dispatch: How each schools rezoning option would impact Richmond's North Side - "The Richmond School Board will meet Monday at Ginter Park Elementary School to finalize new boundaries for schools in the North Side, concluding a contentious rezoning process that has consumed the education discussion in the city for much of the year." The article describes all of the options and includes a photo of printed maps, but there's no online access to the actual maps.
Maps for Fun
OpenStreetMap Haiku: This made the rounds on Twitter this week. Navigate the map to a location and the app will write a haiku based on the geography. I found the navigating difficult, but the poems quite lovely.
On and Off Campus
Twitter: Ryan Miller's Geospatial Semester students are working on projects to support the 2020 Census.
Wesleyan Connection: Students Use GIS Skills to Help Solve Environmental Problems - "Fifteen Wesleyan students who were enrolled in the Introduction to GIS course this fall learned how to apply GIS concepts and skills to solve local problems in environmental sciences." They presented their work to many local project stakeholders.
NC State: UAVs and Christmas Trees: New Research to Help NC - "Researchers at North Carolina State University’s Center for Geospatial Analytics and Christmas Tree Extension will begin work in January on a two-year project in the Blue Ridge Mountains to test techniques for monitoring Christmas trees using drones, otherwise known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs."
University of Richmond: University of Richmond Geography Professors Awarded $700K Grant From NASA to Study Environmental Changes in the Amazon - "Stephanie Spera, assistant professor of geography at the University of Richmond, has been awarded more than $700,000 from NASA for a three-year project to study ecosystem changes in the Amazon rainforest. Spera, along with her co-principal investigator David Salisbury, chair of the University of Richmond Department of Geography and the Environment, and collaborators in Peru and Brazil will research how land use change has affected the rainforest and create analytical and educational tools."
The Edwardsville Intelligencer: SIUE’s Cobb joins GeoFutures Advisory Committee - "[Denise] Cobb, who is the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at SIUE, has been named to the GeoFutures Advisory Committee in St. Louis. Cobb joins leaders from St. Louis’ public and private sectors who have joined a new initiative to bolster the region’s rapidly growing geospatial sector and develop a strategic plan for the future." Edwardsville is just under 30 miles from St. Louis.
KATC Lafayette News - Carencro High School students using their cell phones to track litter - "The students are not only using the technology to learn. They're a part of a much bigger program with Project Front Yard. Three other schools in Lafayette Parish are collecting data. Project Front Yard will then use the data to see how they can prevent these problem areas." This article inludes a bit more context on this program, which I noted last week.
Daily Nexus (UCSB): Geography Department Offers New Emphasis in Ocean Science - "Earlier this year, UC Santa Barbara’s geography department announced a new emphasis within the physical geography major — ocean science — which launched this past quarter, starting with a handful of current geography students."
Programs and Courses
USC: Spatial Sciences Institute, University of Southern California - The school posted a new video by WebsEdgeEducation. Via Adam Carnow on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn: Championing the next generation of Skilled Geospatial Professionals. - The program at BCC Geospatial Center of the CUNY CREST Institute had input from HERE, Planet, Esri, Harris Corporation and others with funding from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education and NASA's EONS programs. The post on LinkedIn reference a full report (92Mb PDF) on a Google Drive.
Technical.ly Philly: Hopeworks Camden is launching a training program for infrastructure jobs - "The nonprofit will partner with Kensington-based civil engineering and land surveying company Rodriguez Consulting on a workforce development program in infrastructure projects using skills such as reading and relaying information from geographic information system (GIS) programs and working at project sites for construction companies or agencies like local water departments." The president and CEO of Rodriguez Consulting is on the board at Widener
University.
Troy: New GIS major preps students for growing career field - "A new academic major at Troy University prepares students for careers in the growing field of Geographic Information Sciences.
...GIS combines elements of the University’s geography and geomatics programs, focusing on analyzing and applying information to maps." That's Troy University in Alabama.
Supporting Students and Studies
Blue Marble: Blue Marble Geographics to introduce new academic lab for processing drone or UAV-collected imagery with live webinar in January - "Blue Marble Geographics is hosting a live webinar that will introduce the addition of photogrammetric point cloud processing from drone or UAV-captured images to the GIS software company’s free academic curriculum. The webinar is an online interactive event designed for educators in higher education and begins at 2:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, January 8, 2020."
Onward to 2020
I'm going to take off the next few weeks off. The next issue of this newsletter will be available on Thursday January 9, 2020. Thanks for reading and for sharing this publication with others who might find it useful.
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