NEMAC celebrates GIS Day 2018

I‘m sure you were very excited about GIS Day. It was last Wednesday.

Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash

To celebrate GIS Day last Wednesday (November 18), NEMAC hosted a special event in our offices at The Collider in downtown Asheville, inviting an Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography class from Enka High School (go Jets!) to join us to learn about GIS.

For the uninitiated, “GIS” stands for geographic information systems, and it’s a catch-all term for the visual representation of geospatial data. Most people probably encounter GIS data in the form of something like Google Maps, where traffic information is overlaid on street data for the purpose of wayfinding. At NEMAC, we use it to help decision makers move forward in a changing world.

A few examples of the forms GIS data can take, from NEMAC’s work over the years.

Our guests’ teacher, Heath Alexander, is involved with the school’s climbing club, cross country, and organizes an annual hike from the school to the top of Mount Pisgah…an 18+ mile hike. What an awesome job! (Full disclosure: my daughter Ally attends Enka High and is involved in all three of Heath’s activities.)

Heath and I got to talking during a cross country meet, and I learned that he taught AP Human Geography. As a geography major, human geography was my favorite part of the discipline. Human geography describes everything — literally everything. I have spent most of my career doing human geography.

For instance, NEMAC deals with the big human geography problem of community resilience. And let’s not forget about our partner and human geography startup, Fernleaf Interactive. There’s also The Collider, both an organization and a physical place, that helps grow companies that use weather and climate data to help humanity prepare, adapt, and become resilient to intensifying climate change.

Needless to say, I was very excited. I told Ally that this would be the best, most exciting class she ever took. No bias here.

Heath and I discussed how we could connect his students with the work we do (we being NEMAC, FernLeaf, and The Collider, collectively). We ended up coordinating a field trip on GIS Day. The plan was simple: the students would come in to our offices, we would talk about our work, and finish the day with some simple GIS activities dealing with coastal resilience. Perfect!

GIS Day (November 14th, 2018) in our offices at The Collider. Photo: Greg Dobson

The day was a great success. Students left with an understanding of how GIS and Human Geography can make huge impacts in their community. They learned how Human Geography is a real field with tons of opportunities. They also were introduced to GIS. The quote of the day came from Heath:

I personally learned a ton and I am now committed to learning more about how I can incorporate GIS into my classroom.

It was a great day, and a great way to inspire a new generation of GISers!