Video of the keynote speaker presentations at the November 2012 ‘GIS and Spatial Thinking in the Undergraduate Curriculum’ conference is embedded below.

Jeremy Crampton:

Anne Kelly Knowles:

Diana Stuart Sinton:

Current list of accepted maps/posters:

• Corinna Keeler, Jon Caris (Smith College), ‘Smith College Mystery Map‘
• Ashraf Ghaly (Union College), ‘Using Cartographic Maps to Facilitate Data Appreciation for the Spatially Challenged‘
• Corinna Keeler (Smith College), ‘“Recipes for GIS Success”: Making GIS easier and more accessible though videos and humor‘ [Interactive]
• Kim Diver (Wesleyan), ‘GIS-based service learning at Wesleyan University: Contributing to the quality of open space in south central Connecticut’
• Kristen Lukens (St. Norbert’s College), ‘edTPA and GIS – A Perfect Match‘ [Interactive]
• Guillaume Turcotte (Villanova), ‘Web Based Mapping at Villanova University‘ [Interactive - best viewed in Internet Explorer]
• Reed Perkins (Queens College), ‘Across Grade Levels, Across Forests, Across Town: A K-5 and University Geospatial Outreach Project‘
• Salim Sawaya (ESRI), ‘Geo-Enabling Aid and Development – The Possibilities of Online and Mobile GIS‘ [Interactive]
• Carolin Ferwerda (Wellesley College), ‘Six Parts of a GIS’
• Rebekah Hupp ’13/Prof. Kevin Gilmore (Civil Engineering) (Bucknell), ‘Transport of Hydraulic Fracturing Water and Wastes in the Susquehanna River Basin’
• Christian Treat ’13/Prof. Michelle Oswald (Civil Engineering) (Bucknell), ‘Using GIS to Model Seal Level Rise Inundation‘
• Darin Rockwell ’13/Prof. Carl Kirby (Geology) (Bucknell), ‘Mapping Marcellus Shale Flowback Water Chemistry’
• Jason Muhlbauer ’13, Zac Hancock ’13, Matt Sirianni ’14, Darin Rockwell ’13, Robby Holler ’13, Mike Grasso ’13 with Profs. Rob Jacob (Geology), Craig Kochel (Geology) and Ben Hayes (Bucknell Environmental Center), (Bucknell), Various Posters on Miller Run Restoration Project
• Steffany Meredyk ’14, Bethany Dunn ’14/Prof. Katherine Faull (German/Comparative Humanities), ‘A Corridor of Fear: Stories along the Susquehanna River, 1754-1768‘
• Steffany Meredyk ’14/Profs. Katherine Faull (German/Comparative Humanities) and Duane Griffin (Geography) (Bucknell), ‘Not Merely Overrun, But Destroyed: The Sullivan Expedition Against the Iroquois Indians, 1779‘
• Prof. Song Chen (East Asian Studies) (Bucknell), ‘Patterns of Local Governance in Sichuan Region (960-1279)‘

Keynote Presentations: 
Jeremy Crampton, University of Kentucky (Geography), ‘Through a Scanner Darkly: Adventures in Top Secret America‘

Diana Sinton, University of Redlands (LENS – LEarNing Spatially), ‘Some Thoughts on GIS in Higher Education Today‘

Session 1 – Mapping Human Activity – Qualitative Analysis GIS:
Meghan Cope, University of Vermont (Geography), ‘Mapping Teen Mobilities: New Ethnographies for Digital Lives‘

Jon Caris, Smith College (Spatial Analysis Lab) and Andy Anderson, Amherst College (Academic Technology Services), ‘Spatial Techniques for Digital Humanities‘

Katherine Faull, Bucknell University (German/Comparative Humanities); David DelTesta, Bucknell University (History), ‘Red River, Black River, the Susquehanna River too: Student-Faculty Collaborations in the Spatial Humanities at Bucknell‘

Session 2 – GIS in Pedagogy:
Jeremy Donald, Trinity University (Library & IT); Mike Winiski, Furman University (Center for Teaching & Learning), ’The Learning Cycle – A Tool for Course and Assignment Design‘

Karen Mulcahy, East Carolina University (Geography), ‘Making the Impossible Possible: A GIS Course Serving Diverse Purposes & Students‘

Ben Marsh, Duane Griffin, Janine Glathar, Bucknell University (Geography), ‘Student Trajectories Towards GIS Competence‘

Session 2 – GIS in Higher Education Community Outreach & Service Learning:
Beverly Wemple, University of Vermont (Geography), ‘Piloting a GIS course as a Service Learning Offering at the University of Vermont‘

Jeff Brunskill, Bloomsburg University (Environmental, Geographical and Geological Sciences), ‘GIS-Based Street Tree Inventories: A Review of an Ongoing Bloomsburg University Community Service Project‘

Tom Mueller, California Univeristy of Pennsylvania (Earth Sciences), ‘Undergraduate Use of PAView for Community Outreach‘

Safe travels to all of you on your way to Lewisburg for this weekend’s conference! We’ll have attendee bags (with a conference agenda and campus map) ready for you at registration. Or you can click here to download and print the final agenda.

 Traveling to Bucknell

Bucknell’s Geography Department recently booked Meghan Cope, Professor of Geography at University of Vermont and co-editor of Qualitative GIS: A Mixed Methods Approach, to speak with Bucknell faculty about her work in qualitative and mixed-methods research. This discussion is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 16th from 2-4pm in Walls Lounge at the Elaine Langone Center. If you are able to get to Lewisburg earlier in the day and would like to participate, please sign up here. Prof. Cope will also be presenting in the Mapping Human Activity – Qualitative AnalysisGIS session on Saturday.

We had a gratifying response to our announcement, both in number of attendees and in the strength of the papers. We’re looking forward to a strong conference. After reviewing the materials submitted to the conference, we’ve decided to shift the schedule of events a bit.  We want to provide the most possible opportunities for attendees to participate and interact.

1. We’ve scheduled a Cocktail Hour/Map Gallery Opening to showcase posters and web maps. If you’d like your poster or web map displayed, please click here for guidelines and a link to the submission form. The Cocktail Hour/Map Gallery Opening will be held on Friday, Nov. 16th from 5-6pm before dinner. Come by to pick up your badge, have a drink, and spend some time meeting fellow conference attendees. Poster authors should be on hand to discuss their work.  
2. We’ll have a session to share challenges and successes in GIS instruction – curricular, institutional, staffing, technical, etc. This is our Mixer with a ‘Spatial’ Twist scheduled for Friday, Nov. 16th from 7:30-9:30, immediately following dinner and the keynote address by Jeremy Crampton. This is an opportunity for us to learn from each other about what works and what doesn’t, and to make connections with people who can help our programs.
3. Submitted papers were far more abundant in some sessions than in others.  We have chosen to drop the concurrent sessions and will have instead have three all-group sessions on Qualitative GIS, Pedagogy and Community Outreach. Times are unchanged; see the revised schedule.

Welcome to the conference website for GIS & Spatial Thinking in the Undergraduate Curriculum! GIS holds enormous potential for undergraduate education across the curriculum, but harnessing that potential is challenging. This conference will provide an opportunity to share ideas, and explore challenges and emerging opportunities. We expect the conference to be a problem-solving workshop allowing faculty from various disciplines to share tools, methods and resources for integrating GIS and spatial analysis into their work and GIS/IT staff to learn about the discipline-specific spatial needs and goals of faculty.

About the Conference:

• When: November 16-18, 2012
• Where: Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA. Click here for a map.
• Details: Click on the pages shown on the menu above to access information on registration, lodging, conference schedule, and submitting presentations and maps.
• Deadlines:  Deadline for early bird registration is September 15, 2012. Deadline for submitting presentations and maps is September 21, 2012.
• Format:  We have chosen a work-group format for the conference in order to maximize opportunities for discussion and brain-storming amongst participants. The main day of the conference will feature five work-group sessions. Each session will consist of 45 minutes of presentations and 45 minutes of open discussion organized around a theme. We are seeking 3 presenters and 1 chairperson for each of the 5 sessions. See the submissions page for a detailed description of each of the session topics:

• 1a (Concurrent with 1b) – Mapping Human Activity – Qualitative Analysis GIS
• 1b (Concurrent with 1a) – Quantitative Analysis & Technical Applications of GIS
• 2   (Single group) – GIS in Pedagogy
• 3a (Concurrent with 3b) – GIS in Community Outreach & Service Learning
• 3b (Concurrent with 3a) – Software & Data Issues in GIS Instruction

• Goals: Desired outcomes include: (1) providing mutual support for imaginative and challenging applications of spatial technology in undergraduate education; (2) fostering potential collaborative efforts between and within participant schools, such as joint research initiatives and/or shared resources for data, web maps and teaching materials, and; (3) creating a regional community of faculty and GIS/IT staff to interact on a regular basis, share information, and exchange ideas about the priorities identified during the conference.

This event is sponsored by Library & Information Technology at Bucknell University. Should you have any questions, please contact Janine Glathar at jlg046@bucknell.edu or (570) 577-1990.