Ridgeland,MS-- A national leader in GIS education is releasing a new book using top experts found via Twitter.

Digital Quest, Inc.’s new book, A Geospatial Industry Series in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics, was written by in-house authors along with contributions from three experts networked on Twitter.

“We know GIS, being that we’ve written several books on the subject,” said Digital Quest president and founder, Eddie Hanebuth. “But rather than simply explain how we want GIS to be, we desired to explain how it actually is. Twittering let us accomplish that by identifying expert contributors and that’s exciting!”

Digital Quest’s primary focus is supplying educational institutions with turn-key courses in skill training for students in the new and increasingly vital field of geospatial technology.

Digital Quest’s new classroom-delivered course is designed to show STEM skills through Green and Sustainability disciplines. Students answer questions using ESRI's ArcGIS Desktop software on topics including:

• What alternative energies are abundant in my area?

• Can we preserve green space in our community?

• Where can a biodiesel fuel company “strike oil”? • How can geospatial technology be beneficial to conservation biology?

• What is the biomass potential of a forest?

• Which watershed will receive funding?

• Where do we create, restore, enhance, or preserve a wetland?

• How do carbon emissions change over time?

Five of the book’s ten lessons were written with assistance from three Twitter-connected experts.

Marc Seelinger, a wetland scientist and proprietor of the Swamp School (Twitter name: SwampSchool), contributed to lesson six on conservation biology, lesson eight on watershed management, and lesson nine on wetland mitigation.

“Marc’s expertise in these fields truly enhanced our own understanding of these important environmental issues. With all of our books, we want to show a scenario that mimics real world activities. Marc was integral in helping the team understand regulation and process for real world lessons. The idea of GIS lessons that are true to industry requirements is very exciting,” said Austin Smith, Digital Quest's Vice President of Development and Support.

Jason San Souci, (Twitter name: JasonAFE) a remote sensing scientist and owner of AFE Advisor who works as a spectral analyst for Decisive Analytics Corporation, “took time out of his schedule to assist the creative staff at Digital Quest in implementing one of his projects in lesson seven on biomass potential,” added Smith.

Finally, Don Meltz, principal planner and owner of Don Meltz Planning and GIS (Twitter name: DonMeltz) “graciously shared not only his planning expertise, but also data files for a real world case study that made lesson four on green space possible,” Smith said.

A fourth contributor was Kevin Gurney, associate professor at Purdue University, Lead on Project Vulcan. Gurney runs a program that provides hourly carbon emission data broken down in to sub sector. Digital Quest hopes that the inclusion of data from this project can show the world one of the great resources that has been built to help make better decisions about our world.

The staff of Digital Quest decided to write the current book, “aGIS in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics: Green & Sustainability Focus”, due to national trends revealing the desire to better educate American students in the STEM fields.

“How do we get more students involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics?” asked Scott Weller, the company’s director of national sales and marketing. “We feel that students who see the growing relationships between skills in GIS and these four vital academic areas will be further motivated and energized to study or specialize in one of those fields.”

This is the third book in a series based on the 16 Career Clusters, created by State Career Clusters’ Initiative, to show how GIS can be applied and used in these career clusters. The series is called “aGIS,” or “a Geospatial Industry Series.” Digital Quest’s other major book series include:

• “SPACE,” or “Spatial Projects And Community Exchange,” which shows students how to apply geospatial projects to their own, local community. SPACE is taken in a conventional classroom, the workplace, or at home.

• “STARS,” or “Spatial Technology And Remote Sensing,” which is both a curriculum series and the leading national, industry-backed, entry-level certification program for students seeking to enter a GIS-related career, as developed in cooperation with the US Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship. STARS is taken by students in colleges, community colleges, or technical schools. More than 300 students have completed STARS certification to date.

Digital Quest is Mississippi-based and operates out of MsET’s the Center of Excellence in Geospatial Technology at NASA’s John C. Stennis Center. The company is a member of the SkillsUSA National Geospatial Competition technical committee, and it also founded the Spatial Technology and Remote Sensing Geospatial Apprenticeship Program (STARS GeoAP), which offers a standardized way for schools, individuals, and employers to train skilled workers for geospatial jobs.

To learn more about the new book, GIS in STEM, find it on amazon.com or call 1-877- 5REMOTE (1-877-573-6683) , email salesusers@digitalquest.com, or visit www.digitalquest.com. President of Digital Quest, Eddie Hanebuth, twitters as GISGuy.