GIS Day is around the corner…please join us for festivities in the Parks Library in Ames, Iowa on Wednesday, November 15, 2023. For GIS Day details: https://www.gis.iastate.edu/gis-day-2023. Also if you have a StoryMap or GIS app or GIS poster or regular paper map – please enter the mapping competition. The competition is open to all, i.e. anyone else reading this, we want to see your mapping skills. There will be prizes! https://tinyurl.com/mappingmasterminds
Here’s a great opportunity for Iowa students in grades 4-12. The Iowa Map Contest is an ArcGIS Online Story Map competition for students to tell Iowa stories. Each school can submit up to five entries. Entries are due Monday, May 8, 2023. For more information about the Iowa Map Contest, visit the contest website: https://sites.google.com/site/iowamapcontest/.
This week we are exploring urban growth in Ames, Iowa. The red areas are showing areas of vegetation that are primarily agricultural in the larger areas, the neon green areas are short grass and trees, the gray color is urban areas, and blue areas are water.
Timelaspse Video of Ames, Iowa 1984 to 2021 – Summer Landsat Images
As you watch the time lapse video notice several things:
The expansion of Ada Hayden (the large lake in the center right of the image.)
How the agricultural land in the center of the images fills in rapidly with development between 2008 to 2021
The increase in permanent water retention ponds in as the city develops.
Many of the red agricultural parcels along Ioway Creek (the left river) become smaller and more developed through the time series.
Compare an image of north Ames, Iowa from 1987 to 2021 – what other urban growth changes can you spot?
Test your holiday geography trivia with Esri’s Holiday Grab Bag Treasure Hunt. Questions range from holiday movie trivia to the origins of festive holiday plants and questions about the great elf himself. Challenge your family and friends and perhaps learn some new facts along the way! Enjoy this festive geographic treasure hunt!
Celebrating 30 years of GIS at ISU today on GIS Day! We also celebrated the 50th anniversary of Landsat and were able to hand out playing cards, refreshments, posters, and other educational materials. This was a great opportunity for our staff in the GIS facility to share the work that they are doing, and teach others about GIS.
Today is GIS Day! We are celebrating in the North atrium of the College of Design. Today is an especially exciting celebration as we are also celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ISU GIS Facility on campus and 50 years of the US Landsat, earth observing satellite mission. Please join us in the College of Design from 11:30am to 2:00 pm. We will have several activities, puzzles, refreshments, educational giveaways, and door prizes.
To celebrate the Landsat Golden Jubilee, consider taking a virtual visit to Camp Landsat!This summer Camp Landsat is celebrating this exciting anniversary with 5 weeks of programming, celebrating the 5 decades of Landsat’s continuous mission. This week the theme is People and Places.
Enjoy and explore many activities from Camp Landsat including:
This year NASA’s Earth Day poster is features a series of QR codes which provide an array of information on a number of their missions, programs, and activities. We have provided a key below explaining each of the numbered QR codes along with the link to each code (click on the name to follow the link.)
Enjoy this water themed poster “Water Today and for the Future” from the AmericaView’s Earth Observation Day Team. This poster contains the creative game experience to help bring understanding to how water resources in America are used and managed for future use. You can download the poster and you can play the game online on Tabletopia. The poster is available in Spanish.
The Iowa Map Contest is open. This year we would like to give out all our prize money. If you know students in grade 4-12 or teachers encourage them to participate. For contest details, visit: https://sites.google.com/site/iowamapcontest/.
There will be prizes! https://tinyurl.com/mappingmasterminds
