Triple Helix

Louis and I went to the AAG conference in NYC at the end of February.  To give a little context, the AAG  (American Association of Geographers) conference is the largest annual conference of geographers in the United States.  The term geography encompasses  two broad areas:  1) Physical geography (cartography, environmental science) and 2) social geography (people, history, economics).  The people who attended ranged from physical scientists (e.g. chemists) to politicians (e.g. U.N. officials).  There were also many
groups interested in GK-12 education, how different cultures affect maps perception, and industrial groups interested in creating technologies to help facilitate geography.

At the conference we met with the GK-12 GLACIER program from B.U. (headed by Dr. Suchi Gopal).  They are interested in teaching climate change in the classroom through using GIS technology.  They had several
examples in which they used satellites, discussions, after school clubs, and Google Earth to teach their lessons.  They also have a few people in their group interested in environmental GIS.
I also attended several other sessions, ranging from creating GIS technologies to GK-12 education in geography and lastly water pollution (which I have a personal interest in).  The education groups were interesting in that they explored student’s spatial awareness as a means to having students understand the world around them.  The groups however were from more suburban or rural schools.

If we are able to get involved with this conference again, I think the conference is better suited for David’s project or a project in the social sciences.  More of the discussions were on understanding the people that live and use a particular space than on the technologies within it.

Overall the conference was fun and got me thinking about ways to use maps in the classroom.  Hopefully I can come up with something that can do this.