Did you know that in 2024 members the AmericaView Education and Outreach Team put together a series of lessons explaining how remote sensing and Earth observation technologies are integral to various sectors within society? These lessons are great! They are geared for middle and high school but can be adapted for your classroom. All six lessons follow a similar pattern: introduction, standards, warm-up (What’s going on in this picture?), a reading exercise, an online map exploration, a career exploration related to the topic, a quiz/assessment, and an online/printable game.
Over the next few months, we will be taking time on the blog to dig into these lessons. We hope you enjoy unpacking these lessons and learn more about earth observation and remote sensing. If you have any questions or suggestions for new lessons, feel free to email IowaView Coordinator, Amy Logan or leave a comment.
Earlier this year, IowaView Staff member, Amy Logan, created a new piece of art for IowaView’s Iowa as Art Collection. The piece is called Cautionary Waters. It is based off an IowaView blog post, Change Over Time – Flooding on the Landscape (NW Iowa), a series of IowaShots images that were released in 2022. This piece revisits those images and includes new Landsat images from the 2023 drought and 2024 flood.
Cautionary Waters: Visons of the Past, Planning for the Future
How are we planning for the future in our communities? Cautionary Waters is a piece of artwork that asks us to think about this question.
The piece includes four Landsat satellite images of the same area of Northwest Iowa taken in 1990 (a normal year, upper left), 1993 (a year of memorable flooding in the Midwest, upper right), 2023 (a year of drought, lower left), and 2024 (another year of memorable flooding, lower right). White areas in these images are water. These two flood events were roughly 30 years apart.
The piece asks viewers to reflect: when we are planning, do we consider only typical conditions, or does our planning account for extremes, flood or drought as well? Are we willing to allow development in the floodplain and take the loss when the flood comes, or perhaps make a harder choice to not develop there and lose out in the short-term? Also, in cases when we choose to develop in lower elevation areas, what kinds of zoning and development are we allowing in these areas?
The piece is currently on display as part of the “Do Justice” art exhibit at Harvest Vineyard Church, in Ames, Iowa, which runs through the end of January 2025. After that the piece is available for loan on a first come, first serve basis. If interested in displaying the piece or other Iowa as Art pieces, please contact, Amy Logan, IowaView State Coordinator for additional details.
As this year comes to a close, many people take time off for rest and celebration. Here are a few fun maps and StoryMaps that have some holiday themes or can help you plan for adventures in 2025.
Are you ready to plan your big vacation for 2025? The Esri Team has made a fun and interactive guide to help generate some vacation ideas with the Vacation Locations StoryMap.
Enjoy these Mappy holidays, cheers, and have a happy, mappy New Year!
Winner of the Map Category – Mapping My Biking Journey with Distance of Distinct Traveled Paths Created by Atlas Chenxiao Guo from University of Wisconsin-Madison Map Description: This map shows all my biking tracks, including the majority in the US and few Chinese cities. All the circled track maps have the same scale. Each path is counted only once in the distance calculation. For more information Click Here!
Mapping My Biking Journey with Distance of Distinct Traveled Paths Software/Materials Used: ArcGIS Pro; Adobe Illustrator
Winner of the StoryMap Category – Iowa Freedom Rock Tour Created by Trenton Major, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences – Iowa State University StoryMap Description: This Story Map displays the locations of Iowa’s Freedom Rocks and scenic routes. It is designed to help users navigate the Freedom Rock Tour within the state of Iowa.
Iowa Freedom Rock Tour Software/Materials Used:ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS StoryMaps
Thank you again to everyone who participated in this year’s competition!
On Wednesday, November 20, we had a great GIS Day celebration atThe Catalyst in Parks Library. Thank you to library digital scholarship staff for hosting us and providing their expertise.
We had five speakers sharing on different topics:
CollectionBuilder for Historical GIS: an update on the ISU Historical Buildings Project – Erin Ridnour, Digital Scholarship Librarian, University Library
Tillage Detectives: Determining Residue Cover via Satellite – Bryce Pape, Graduate Student and Brian Gelder, DEP and GISF Co-Lead
Library Instruction with ArcGIS StoryMaps – Michael Cummings and Erin Ridnour, Digital Scholarship Librarians
Using Past Slope Failures to Prepare for the Future: A Case Study across the State of North Dakota – Beena Ajmera, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering
Geospatial Modeling for Regional Trail Planning – Austin Dunn, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
The ISU GIS Facility is hosting our second annual Mapping Masterminds Map Competition. It is open to everyone, everywhere. There are two categories for submissions: 1) Maps and 2) StoryMaps. There are cash gift cards for top prizes. Entries are due Sunday, November 17, 2024. Here is the link to the official website for more details and to submit your map: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f5f90197f924413080353752f6f89e1e.
The ISU GIS Support and Research Facility and IowaView along with Parks Library will be hosting GIS Day 2024 on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in The Catalyst at Parks Library (Room 199) at Iowa State University. This is a come-and-go event so stay as long as you would like. GIS Day is for everyone, from the GIS curious to the GIS user. There will be speakers throughout the morning sharing their research from around campus, information about GIS opportunities and programs on campus, free GIS swag, free food, and a map competition with prizes.
Earth Observation Day 2024 is finally here as it the release of the AmericaView 2024 Earth Observation Day Poster! The poster is following the theme of this year’s Earth Science Week theme, “Earth Science Everywhere”. The front of the AmericaView 2024 Earth Observation Day poster features 6 image themes: agriculture, disaster, forestry, urban land use, water, and wildlife. The back of the poster explains the significance of the images and provides links to 6 themed lesson plans. IowaView was responsible for the disaster management lesson plan.
Next week, IowaView and the ISU GIS Facility will be hosting an Earth Observation Day celebration, on Tuesday, October 15, from 10:00 to 11:30 in Durham 206 as part of Earth Science Week 2024.
Here’s the schedule:
10:00 – 10:30 Dr. Antonio Arenas, Civil Construction & Environmental Engineering Topic: Google Earth Engine and Open ET (Evapotranspiration)
10:30 – 11:00 Dr. Brian Gelder, Agricultural And Biosystems Engineering, ISU GIS Facility Research Lead Topic: LiDAR Processing via ArcGIS and PDAL (a Python extension for translating point cloud data)
11:00 – 11:30 Bryce Pape – Graduate Student, Community and Regional Planning Topic: Google Earth Engine and Agriculture Residue Cover
We will also provide snacks (a cupcake cake) and Earth Observation Day swag including booklets, posters, and trading cards. Please come and go as you need to. We look forward to seeing you there.
The ISU GIS Facility will be hosting the 3rd annual geospatial summer workshop for K-12 teachers and pre-service teachers in Ames, Iowa on July 17 – 18, 2024. This workshop will show many geospatial tools and applications from the Esri ecosystem as well as Google Earth, OpenStreetMap, AmericaView, and others. Teachers will get to see a variety of map tools and exercises that they can bring into current lessons. We will explore resources available at local, state, and national levels. Each participant will make a StoryMap to use in their classroom. Teachers can sign up for graduate or continuing education credit. Please email Amy Logan with any questions.
