{"id":180,"date":"2011-11-14T19:13:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T19:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/?p=180"},"modified":"2018-08-30T16:33:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T20:33:56","slug":"got-gis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/2011\/11\/14\/got-gis\/","title":{"rendered":"from the director’s desk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Got GIS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My original plan for this blog entry was to shamelessly promote GIS Day<\/a> (November 16th)\u00a0 – write something about this year\u2019s t-shirt \u2013 and link it somehow to Geography Awareness Week<\/a>. Fortunately, one chance occurrence has changed all that.<\/p>\n

Picture this: a Sunday afternoon spent grading and helping students in my lab, and a workshop in the next room.\u00a0 A chance encounter in the hallway.\u00a0 \u201cSo, I see you teach in the Spatial Analysis Lab?\u00a0 What is that?\u201d, she asks quite innocently.\u00a0 I explain.\u00a0 \u201cOh (awkward pause) \u2026 well \u2026 what department would something like that fall under?\u201d\u00a0 I ignore the \u201csomething like that\u201d part and answer as sweetly as is possible while drawing blood on my tongue because I know what\u2019s coming next.\u00a0 \u201cBut,\u201d she continues \u2026 not meaning to be ignorant or offensive in any way, \u201cwhat is it called?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cGEOGRAPHY\u201d,\u00a0 I repeat .\u00a0 \u201cWell, I\u2019ve already got a GPS.\u201d\u00a0 And with that, my new friend exits and my heart races like something from Rocky and Chariots of Fire combined and the conviction I have to educate people about my discipline is so deep I consider wrapping myself in maps and walking around campus as \u201cGeography Girl\u201d.\u00a0 Thankfully, I\u2019ve got two teenage daughters at home who know how to draw the line so that they aren\u2019t forever banished from public life.<\/p>\n

There is a great article written by Dr. Jerome Dobson of the American Geographical Society called \u201cBring Back Geography!\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 In it he addresses both the idea of geographic ignorance (not knowing where places are) and ignorance of Geography \u2013 the discipline, which, by the way, is much more than knowing your state capitals, longest rivers, and highest mountain peaks.\u00a0 \u201cGeography Awareness Week\u201d was created in 1987 by the National Geography Society (and others) to address this knowledge gap.\u00a0 GIS Day is held on the Wednesday of Geography Awareness Week \u2013 its purpose \u2013 demonstrate the important contributions GIS is making to the discipline of Geography and to our world.<\/p>\n

Now for the t-shirts and shameless promotion.\u00a0 Each fall my Introduction to GIS students help the University of Richmond celebrate GIS Day by hosting an open house in our lab, inviting speakers to campus, baking (and eating) cakes, and wearing cool t-shirts.\u00a0 Visitors can spend 6 minutes or 6 hours at this year\u2019s event<\/a>.\u00a0 Our shirt design \u2013 \u201cgot gis?\u201d has taken on special significance for me after a recent encounter with one of my students.\u00a0 She and her partner were attempting the first part of a fairly complex three part analysis.\u00a0 Their task \u2013 areal interpolation \u2013 involves disaggregating data from census tracts and then reaggregating it for hydrologic units.\u00a0 Numerous frustrating failed-attempts and numerous questions answered with more questions (\u201cProfessor, why xyz?\u201d \u2026 \u201cWell student,\u201d I answer wisely and patiently, \u201chave you considered abc? Or perhaps the impact of d and h?\u201d \u2026 I try to direct the student to find the answer instead of giving the answer outright) had nearly driven this pair to the breakpoint when suddenly she jumps out of her seat (and I\u2019m not exaggerating – while parts of this blog entry may be fictional this is not one of those parts) and yells \u201cGET SOME!\u201d\u00a0which in this context means \u201cOh yes, I am so satisfied with myself and really excited that I solved this problem that was very challenging\u201d \u2013 perhaps a raunchy equivalent of yippee or yahoo.\u00a0 That\u2019s deep learning. So, for those who don\u2019t \u201cgot gis?\u201d I say only this: get some.<\/p>\n

– Kim Klinker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got GIS? My original plan for this blog entry was to shamelessly promote GIS Day (November 16th)\u00a0 – write something about this year\u2019s t-shirt \u2013 and link it somehow to Geography Awareness Week. Fortunately, one chance occurrence has changed all that. Picture this: a Sunday afternoon spent grading and helping students in my lab, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4215,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5830],"tags":[5843,5837,5845,5846,24537,5838,675],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-directors-desk","tag-gis","tag-gis-day","tag-mapping","tag-problem-based-learning","tag-sal","tag-spatial-analysis-lab","tag-university-of-richmond"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Tv8N-2U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/sal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}