Spaced Out ::

GIS Day proved to be a great success with somewhere around 60 students attending from a range of local schools. A brief summary of the day and some limited practical materials will shortly be available at the Centre for GIS.

I gave the introductory presentation (also available at the above link) which used a range of satellite imagery to explore the “ethos” of Geography:

WHERE
WHY
SO WHAT

We need to understand where events occur and Geography then explores why they occur. Business and government then take on the idea of so what to implement policies. Geography is therefore central to nearly everything everybody does!!

Ken and James gave the students a GIS taster through two practical sessions using ArcGIS, Google Earth and Google SketchUp. The students finally came back together for our discussion panel. It was great to be able to draw together a variety of people from different sectors and industries and I’d personally like to thank the Metropolitan Police, cadcorp, CACI, ERM and ESRI for making staff available. The panel was completed by Vanessa Lawrence (CEO and Director General of the OS) who helped provide a lively debate.

Vanessa completed the day with an excellent broad sweep of GIS and the GI industry with a focus upon how OS fits in to that. I found it interesting and learnt a thing or two about the OS (like they have a team of 30 to find out where things change in the UK. The so called Change Detection Team!)

So all in all a good day and we are looking forward to organising a similar event next year. If you are a teacher and would be interested in attending (with or without your students) then please get in touch.