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Celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of GIS Day

Contributed by Beth Wilkerson, GIS Specialist (adapted from GIS Day press release)

Held each year on the Wednesday of National Geographic Society’s Geography Awareness Week, GIS Day is a global event that celebrates geographic information system (GIS) technology. Its goal is to make people aware of this innovative technology that uses geography to bring numerous benefits to the world and to highlight the important contributions GIS is making in the fields of science, technology, information, and the humanities.

A GIS is a computer-based system that links geographic information with descriptive information and presents the results on a map. By converting data into visual layers on a map, users can gain a better understanding of the data and can immediately begin to pick out trends or relationships that may not have been discovered using traditional analysis methods.

Although you may not be aware of it, GIS touches our lives daily. It is used throughout the world to solve problems related to the environment, health care, land use, business efficiency, education, and public safety. For example, the power supply directed to homes, the patrol cars and fire trucks that keep neighborhoods safe, and the delivery trucks on the road all function more efficiently because of GIS. Most recently, we have seen how GIS technology can be used to aid Homeland Security initiatives, map the debris field following the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, monitor the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and track the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The applications of GIS technology are endless, limited only by the imagination of its users.

2008 marks GIS Day’s tenth year, and this is the fifth straight year that DePauw has hosted a GIS Day event. This year’s event will showcase faculty and student GIS projects as well as introduce GIS concepts via posters, displays, multimedia presentations, and interactive activities.

Join us to celebrate GIS Day 2008, and find out how your colleagues are using GIS!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Julian Science & Mathematics Center Atrium

For more information, visit http://www.depauw.edu/univ/gis/GIS_Day_2008/.

Contributed by Beth Wilkerson, GIS Specialist

According to Dr. Sherry Mou (Asian Studies), “teaching Chinese culture to students with little or no background in Chinese history and geography can be a challenge”. This fall, students in Dr. Mou’s First -Year Seminar are studying Chinese culture and literature with an added technological twist. Students are not only reading a complete translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but they also are gaining insight into Chinese culture by using Google Earth.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a classic Chinese historical novel that was written in the fourteenth century. It focuses on events that occurred near the end of the Han Dynasty and during China’s Three Kingdoms era. This massive novel (120 chapters spanning over 2000 pages) includes numerous historical battles and places, and for readers unfamiliar with China, making sense of it all and keeping characters and events straight can be a daunting task. Dr. Mou is helping her students visualize the locations and grasp the cultural significance by using Google Earth to incorporate interactive maps and multimedia content into lessons.

Google Earth is a free, downloadable virtual globe application that allows users to virtually fly anywhere on the face of the Earth. The Google Earth globe is completely covered with spatially referenced aerial imagery, and via Google Earth’s navigational tools, users can zoom in to explore specific locations as well as tilt the view to see the terrain or topographical features of the Earth. In addition, Google Earth allows users to create custom content that can be shared with others, in this case, with students in a First-Year Seminar.

In preparation for the seminar, this summer Dr. Mou, Ryan Johnson (DePauw student), and Beth Wilkerson (GIS Specialist) worked to create Google Earth content to accompany the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel. In particular, placemarks (point locations in Google Earth) were created for locations mentioned in the novel. Not only do the placemarks provide a geographical frame of reference for what the students are reading, but by embedding images, text, and audio-video clips in the placemark description balloons, students gain a broader comprehension of the culture and its relationship to location. In addition, maps from the novel that portray troop movements, battles, or other significant events were spatially overlain on the Google Earth globe. Although the hand-drawn maps may not precisely correspond with exact locations of Chinese landforms and cities, students are able to get a sense of the role of geographical elements (e.g., mountains, plains, rivers) and how those features impacted the characters in the story and the events being described.

Because the seminar is still in progress, it is difficult to ascertain the full impact that Google Earth will have on this course. However, it is safe to assume that the incorporation of this interactive spatial technology will “not only illuminate the old stories, but also provide an exciting inter-textual adventure through the varied interpretations”. [Mou, CLTA Abstract, 2008]

For more information on how you may use Google Earth in your class, contact Beth Wilkerson at bwilkerson@depauw.edu.