I finally got around to playing with National Geographic’s MapMaker Interactive application on the organization’s education site. As a GIS analyst with two young boys I am always interested in tools that can help teach them about geography or GIS. The MapMaker tool helps teach both of these. The interface is built on the ArcGIS …
Read more “Another Tool in the Box: National Geographic’s MapMaker Interactive”
There are nine core academic subjects in the No Child Left Behind Act. Of the nine, only geography doesn’t have its own federal funding stream. Since 2008, geography advocates have petitioned the federal government for just such a stream, in part by supporting what is called the Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act. There is a …
Read more “Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act is Misguided”
Geospatial technologies do not exist for their own sake. The real power of geospatial technology is in its ability to solve problems in other disciplines. GIS is not a tool that is applied to the GIS industry. Rather, it is a tool to be applied to geology, engineering, aviation, logistics, gardening, personal navigation, intelligence, real …
If you work with international GIS data you know how important it is to have standards for place and region names. Many governments maintain stability in place names so they rarely change but there are always plenty of exceptions. Furthermore, spellings often have variations based on translations and dialect making it difficult to put an …
Read more “NGA GEOnet Names Server Ensures Uniform Place Names”
I recently saw a tweet highlighting a Youtube video showing 2011 earthquakes as a dynamic time lapse map. You can watch it on Youtube. During the 9 minute video of a single map, the viewer is shown various sized rings at each epicenter location. The ring’s size is dependent on the magnitude of the quake.This …
Technology changes rapidly. It seems like there is a new version of some device or software presented daily. GIS technology is no exception to this rapid change. While currently employed GIS professionals are usually in their position because their skill set matches the needs of the employer, keeping up with industry development can help you …
Letterboxing is an old activity, somewhat related to both geocaching and orienteering. It involves navigating from a given starting point to a cached box containing a log book and a rubber stamp. Navigation consists of anything from following riddles and printed clues to compass directions and distances. The low-tech nature of letterboxing is one of …
Read more “Letterboxing as an Introduction to Navigation and Location”
StumbleUpon is a great site for finding web sites and blogs you might not otherwise come across. Of course many well known sites are there as well. In my perusals I came across the following five mapping/GIS sites that I thought were interesting. FlashEarth – Here is a nifty little satellite imagery viewing application. Flash Earth …
Read more “5 Nifty Mapping Sites From StumbleUpon This Week”
It never ceases to amaze me how many GIS professionals feel the need to brand themselves “The Map Guy”. If you could collect a business card from everyone at a GIS conference you would find maybe a quarter of them with “The Map Guy!” printed below their name. It’s not a bad tag line for …
We all love working for an organization with deep GIS pockets. When there is a fat budget you can afford to buy more toys, upgrade the toys you already have and generally keep up with technology. Our current economy, however, has impacted even the biggest budgets like that of the Federal government and most state …
Read more “6 Ways to Squeeze More GIS Juice From Your Budget”