Geographers,

For those interested, City Lab has started publishing an electronic newsletter with articles and content related to cartography and mapping. You can read the first issue at https://www.citylab.com/design/2017/11/introducing-maplab/545363/ and sign up for the newsletter at https://www.citylab.com/newsletters/.

A few items in the newsletter that relate to our community may be of particular interest:

• Knox MPC has bike injury/fatality data available if you want to conduct a similar analysis to the one shown in NYC
• Mapillary is mentioned for the way that Lithuania is using the platform to inventory all of the road signs in the country. Stop by and see me if you want to learn more about Mapillary and let people know about our Volstarter campaign to raise money for equipment to collect this data on campus.
• A second-grade class at Ozark North Elementary in Ozark, Missouri knows that “maps have a compass rose and a map key to help us find important places,” but “would like to know how people in our community use maps,” and specifically wants to know “What jobs find maps helpful? What kinds of maps do people use the most? Is there anyone who can’t do their job without a map of some kind?” Email the teacher, [log in to unmask]">Ms. Chapin, if you want to share ways that you use maps in your research, internships, and jobs.

If you are at all interested in gerrymandering, Five Thirty Eight has a new podcast series all about the topic available at https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-cant-we-just-burn-gerrymandering-to-the-ground/. They will be focusing each episode on several states and the issues they are facing. 2017 and 2018 are big years for gerrymandering because of the recent Gill v Whitford case in October with the Supreme Court. If you aren’t familiar with gerrymandering and want to learn more, check out this goofy video that does an excellent job of explaining it (John Oliver has a great episode on gerrymandering too but the language is too colorful for a recommendation) and this interactive game on how you too can manipulate congressional districts. If you want to learn more about the math (efficiency gap) behind Gill v Whitford this infographic does a great job of explaining it. RadioLab has a special podcast series about the Supreme Court called More Perfect and they talk about gerrymandering in these two episodes 1 (a Supreme Court case about TN that doesn’t involve evolution…who knew?), 2. If you are taking 311 in the spring we could come up with a great project on this topic.

Finally, ESRI is looking for student volunteers for the upcoming 2018 Federal GIS Conference, 2018 Developer Summit, and the 2018 User Conference. ESRI is looking for GIS Interns in Redlands, DC, and St. Louis. Information on all of these opportunities is available at http://www.esri.com/careers/main/student-jobs.

Michael Camponovo, CFM

GIS Outreach Coordinator

Geography Department

209A Burchfiel Geography Building

UT Knoxville

[log in to unmask]

(865) 974-5348

https://geography.utk.edu