Interactive maps have become a part of daily life via computers, smartphones and GPS units and when coupled with demographic and environmental data, the maps become powerful research tools. Those tools are now available to Missouri students as they start the new school year. All K-12 schools and certified youth programs in the state now have free access to data and detailed maps provided by a Geographic Information System (GIS), thanks to the Missouri Geographic Alliance, which is hosted by the University of Missouri. Besides offering students and teachers a plethora of educational possibilities, the experience with GIS also will give students valuable experiences in a growing field of employment.
Later in the article it makes clear the software is granted by a statewide edu license from Esri. Equally important, there are professional development opportunities for educators to learn about the software.
The Missouri Geographic Alliance will host a one-day conference on September 29 at MU. The hands-on workshop will cover GIS, GPS and other geography topics. Missouri teachers who are interested in using free GIS in their classrooms are encouraged to attend. To register, please visit http://mogeography2012.eventbrite.com
University of Cincinnati Professor Tomasz Stepinski, the Thomas Jefferson Chair Professor of Space Exploration at the University of Cincinnati, will present "LandEx - A GeoWeb-based Tool for Exploration of Patterns in Raster Maps" on Thursday, Sept. 20, at GIScience 2012. The paper is co-authored by Stepinski and colleagues from the University of Wroclaw and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland. LandEx is a map-based landcover app that basically does a "find more like this" when a user selects and area of interest. You can test it here.
- UC News
Researchers have developed a new "video" game for blind people that can help them learn about a new space using only audio cues, as reported Sep. 19 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
The system, developed by a team led by Lotfi Merabet of Harvard Medical School and Jaime Sánchez of the University of Chile, is called the Audiobased Environment Simulator and uses only audio-based cues to allow blind users to learn about the layout of a previously unfamiliar building.
- PhysOrg
- article in PLOS ONE
