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Posted 11/18/02
College researchers, local businesses show off GIS projects at Nov. 20 poster session
Upper Valley community members who use geographic information systems (GIS) in their work will have a chance to show off their endeavors at Dartmouth on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
As part of the National Geographic Society's Geography Awareness Week and the global celebration of GIS Day on Nov. 20, the College is hosting a public poster session where faculty members, students and local businesses-people can display examples of the work they do with GIS. Scheduled to begin with a formal proclamation by Provost Barry Scherr at 9:45 a.m. Nov. 20, the display in the Baker Library Corridor will continue until 4 p.m. Staff members from the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences Community Mapping Program will present an introductory workshop on the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) for interdisciplinary mapping projects. The workshop will take place at 3 p.m. on the Green (rain location to be announced).
"Celebrating GIS Day at Dartmouth is a perfect opportunity to raise awareness among students, faculty, and the public at large about what is already being done here with this technology and about the importance of geography as a discipline that can address a huge number of social and environmental issues. My hope is that people will see how GIS and geographic thinking can be important in their own field of interest," said Dan Karnes, who was recently appointed as Academic Computing's GIS Curricular Consultant and is organizing the Dartmouth GIS Day events.
A GIS is a computer-based mapping tool that takes information from a database about a place and turns it into visual layers. Having the ability to see, and perform geostatistical analyses on, all of these features on one map gives the viewer a better understanding of how these factors interact in a particular location.
At press time, more than a dozen exhibitors were planning to participate in the GIS Day event, including Dartmouth College and Medical School researchers, the City of Lebanon, Geographic Data Technology Inc., and the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.
According to information from the National Geographic Society, professionals in more than 80 countries throughout the world will mark GIS Day.
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