Women in GIS is sponsoring class presentations for the fourth annual GIS day, a
global event occurring on November 20, 2002 the Wednesday of Geography Awareness Week (November 17th – 23rd). Designed primarily for 6th and 7th graders,
our presentation brings GIS professionals into classrooms to demonstrate GIS at work with hands-on projects for the students.
The presentations revolved around a CD which includes: first a PowerPoint presentation guiding the class through a general discussion of GIS and how it is used; and then two projects. The first project “Where’s your school from the Oregon Zoo?” looks at local data around the particular school where the presentation takes place and helps the students think about spatial relationships and distances. Next groups discuss the park the zoo was in and how this park was near another famous park in Portland, Forest Park. Students are given maps of Forest Park to student and help them with the second project, “Let’s plan a park like Forest Park.”
Other exercises may be added this year dealing with the topics of Homeland Security and Exploring Your Public Lands. Presentations are designed to be 45 minutes long but can be tailored to meet the specific presenters’ or teachers’ needs. Ideally class visits should occur on or around GIS Day (November 20th) during Geography Awareness week, but you could work out another date with the teacher that works well for both of you.
GIS Day aims to make students aware of GIS technology and the important contributions it is making in the fields of science, technology, information and the humanities. It’s a time for GIS professionals to share with people and organizations both how to explore geographic information and how to reap the benefits of GIS technology. An increasing number of K-12 educators throughout Oregon are GIS as a tool for teaching science and social students because of previous GIS Day presentations in their classes. The event is sponsored nationally by the National Geographic Society, URISA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Library of Congress, and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) as well as others.
For further information visit: http://www.orurisa.org/wigis/html/gisday.html
To become a presenter or to learn more about this year’s GIS Day presentation, contact:
Dana Baker, danabaker@earthlink.net
or (503) 808-6320.
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