GIS Day 2007

This is the 9th year that Delaware County is celebrating the Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day.

The Geography Awareness Week is sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the American Association of Geographers (AAG), Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), and the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS). Since 1987, the National Geographic Society has sponsored Geography Awareness Week to promote geographic literacy in schools, communities, and organizations, with a focus on the education of children. This event was intended to promote the understanding of geography in schools around the world.

For the past 8 years, Delaware County GIS team has been visiting various schools within Delaware County educating students of various ages about GIS, Geography and GIS Day. However, this year the team headed south to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio to help a non profit organization called Caching Our World. The event was held November 13-15, 2007 and was a collaborative effort between Miami University, Caching Our World, and many other volunteers including Delaware County GIS team and GISCorps volunteers.

Click the thumbnails below to enlarge each photo.

While some of the volunteers ended up going onsite (on November 14th), others helped create attractive maps for the Map Gallery and prepare names tags and certificates for the students. Volunteers (from GISCorps and Delaware County GIS office) were:

Lucia Barbato, Shoreh Elhami, Tara Havens, Jinhu Ju, Melissa Lobdell, Patricia Moehring, Megan Winnenberg, and Susan Wolfinbarger. You can see the photos of some of the volunteers above.

The main theme of the event was "Africa 3D: Discovery, Diversity, Demographics" and the event brought tens of third to fifth grade students from Hamilton and Cincinnati public schools to this 3-day event. Activities included:

1. A treasure hunt where students learned about directions of a compass.

2. Hands-on Google Earth activities where students were given a series of clues and had to figure out which regions were being mentioned.

3. Oxford Gourd and Drum Ensemble provided musical entertainment from various regions of Africa.

4. Students made African tribal masks.

5. Wings of Wonder bird show from Cincinnati Zoo.

6. Nationally known storyteller from Oxford United Methodist Church, Pastor Fred Shaw, told fascinating children stories.

To read more about this year's event and learn more about Caching Our World and their activities, visit their web site.