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Geographers,
We were recently invited to attend the Morgan County College and Career Fair at the Wartburg Vocational Center held last Friday. My goal for the event was to impress upon the students that there is more to geography than memorizing capitals
and coloring in maps. To that end, we set up several stations to highlight the ways in which STEM fields apply to geography. Graduate students Kyle Landolt and Zach Merrill set up the virtual sand box and had a continuous crowd of both students and teachers.
They also coached me through the finer points of both a UAV and a lidar scanner so that I could share those tools and their outputs with the students. We were also joined by Erin Kelbly from the UTK Office of Sustainability. Erin is an AmeriCorp member who
also happens to be taking GIS courses at Roane State Community College. Erin spent the day providing examples of how she uses GIS within her work on campus as well as the wider role that GIS plays in a variety of disciplines. Kurt Butefish from the Tennessee
Geographic Alliance spent the day coordinating with teachers to increase the teaching of geography within the Morgan County School System.
I don’t have an exact number but we spoke to hundreds of 8-12 grade students and provided a positive experience with geography. We likely spoke with dozens of teachers as well, even a few UTK Geography grads. We had an opportunity to meet
Ms. Anna Pittman who teaches business courses at the vocational school while also taking GIS courses from RSCC with the goal of teaching high school students. Based on the number of business cards we handed out I suspect we’ll be invited to present at a few
schools in the spring and Ms. Pittman has asked us to provide a more in-depth program to her students once she is further along in her training.
In addition to Erin, Kyle, and Zach, I want to thank Dr. Robert Washington-Allen since he was kind enough to loan us a UAV, lidar scanner, and the virtual sandbox for the day. There were also several grad students who helped us unload the
equipment on Friday afternoon.
I continue to be impressed by the members of our department and their dedication to our discipline through your continued support of various outreach activities on campus and in the surrounding communities.
Thanks again,
Michael Camponovo, CFM
GIS Outreach Coordinator
Geography Department
209A Burchfiel Geography Building
UT Knoxville
(865) 974-5348