For the past two years, I have presented a GIS/mapping workshop as part of Paideia — in 60-ish minutes, aiming to give the Reed community an introduction into the concepts of spatial analysis, basic cartography and critical map reading, and how they might start approaching analytical and/or spatial projects of their own.
This year I decided to split this into two sessions — one focused on GIS as a tool, another focused more on mapmaking and less on data and/or analysis.
Problem: when you’re limited to one hour, and this might be your only chance to get your audience excited about GIS — what do you highlight? To the Twitter, Batman!
Dear #gistribe: You have 60 minutes to teach college students whatever you want (incl hands-on things) about GIS. What makes that shortlist?
— Kristin Bott (@RhoBott) January 19, 2016
The full suite of replies is below, calling for a mix of specific procedural tips, tool recommendations, key pieces of theory and/or details of working with data, as well as a nod to context, applications, and answers to “so what?” / “why does this matter?” questions.
Thanks to all who responded, and thanks to @wildlifegisgirl for the mention/RT. To get some sense of what the workshop looked like, here’s materials from the GIS presentation (session post @ Reed’s datablog / slides for presentation); the mapping workshop was much less structured, mostly hands-on/demo time using some available local data.
@rhobott
Do something GIS-like using a tool you wouldn’t think of as a GIS tool (ie Excel)
— David Bitner (@bitnerd) January 19, 2016
@rhobott Using transformations in #QGIS and #ArcGIS and then the importance of datum & scale information on the map #GISTribe
— Nicholas Duggan (@Dragons8mycat) January 19, 2016
@rhobott QGIS and maybe PostGIS depending on the tech knowledge of the students #gistribe
— H8-TR (@Spatial_Punk) January 19, 2016
@rhobott re: web GIS, geojson.io and dropchop.io
— joe larson (@oeon) January 19, 2016
@rhobott also CartDB. Provides a breadth of exposure to spatial db, SQL, viz, JS, etc. All can be expanded on after a 60 minute flyby.
— Nick Martinelli (@nichom) January 19, 2016
@rhobott null island and other data problems; cartograms are terrible; spatial joins are the basis of gis
— Matt Moehr (@mattmoehr) January 19, 2016
@rhobott One of my fav spatial exercises is directions. First ask, How would you give directions from x to y. Then, ask *why*.
— Kitty Hurley (@GeospatialEM) January 19, 2016
@rhobott Areas where GIS has helped industry, individuals. Short examples so that at least the “Why” is covered #gistribe
— Brian Bancroft (@Brian_Bancroft) January 19, 2016
@rhobott probably adding a CSV with coordinates and create a map, then do some analysis with the data
— Antonio Locandro (@antoniolocandro) January 21, 2016