Each month we feature GeoMentor volunteers to showcase the wonderful talent available in our community to assist K-12 schools. Read our full collection of GeoMentor spotlights   online . Want to be featured?  Information is available on our   program website . Name:  Lauren Sinclair Position/Job and Affiliation:  Middle School GIS Teacher! It's my dream job! What was your favorit class in K-12? I loved it all. I think that's why I'm a teacher. But in undergrad my favorite classes were all geography... so I asked my favorite geography professor for advice on learning more. Because of his awesome advice I tried my first GIS and ended up at PSU studying geomorphology and GIS for my master's. How did you first learn about and/or use GIS?  My first GIS experience is freeze-framed in my memory, which is exactly why I love recreating that magical experience for my students every semester. It was an exploration of the Ring of Fire on an early version of ArcMap in 2005 or so... what I remember most was following the directions and turning on the volcanoes layer, the earthquakes layer, and then the plate boundaries layer... and I felt like I had discovered plate tectonics myself! My immediate thought was "kids have got to try this!" Name one thing you love about GIS and/or geography.  GIS has evolved to be more intuitive and user friendly every year. It's already at a point where my 6th-8th graders learn how to use ArcGISOnline independently over the course of about 30 hours in one semester... and some of my 8th graders are honestly better at spatial analysis than I am by the end of the semester. That's powerful. That tells me that we need to give youth more opportunities to use this technology earlier... we shouldn't wait until an undergraduate program to introduce people to GIS! Why did you want to volunteer as a GeoMentor?  I guess I see myself as a GeoMentor advocate. When I started turning the technology class at my middle school into a GIS class, I had no idea what to do, so I reached out to the GeoMentor network and connected to some of my PSU professors. They got me from crawling to running in no time! I've since invited dozens of GIS professionals to my classroom and encouraged them to become GeoMentors. It's important for my students to meet GIS professionals in person and see the huge range of applications for the technology. They've met people from Esri, MapBox, Quantum Spatial, Extensis, Portland State University, Portland Community College, and more! There are so many more classrooms out there that will never experience GIS without the encouragement and support of a GeoMentor, which is why I'm always encouraging GIS professionals to visit a classroom! What kind of GeoMentor volunteer opportunity and experience are you looking for?  Most teachers don't know about GIS and don't know what to do with it, so I encourage GeoMentors to take an existing resource and volunteer to teach it themselves with the teacher's support. Teachers are so busy... it's overwhelming to consider trying new technology. But if someone is willing to visit my classroom and say "Hey! You sit back and sip your coffee and just help me keep the kids on their best behavior, and I'll teach the lesson"...I'll say yes to that in a heartbeat! I recommend that GeoMentors offer to teach an activity like this one I just published with Esri's LearnArcGIS team, or a GeoInquiry. The GeoInquiries are great because you can ask your child's teacher "what are you studying right now?" and then find an existing GeoInquiry that matches almost any topic! Everything is ready for you: the GIS is ready for students, there are worksheets you can print... they're ready to go in 5 minutes. I've brought GeoInquiries into my colleagues' classrooms in almost every subject, and they're always amazed at how easy and engaging they are. Now they're teaching GeoInquiries themselves! That's the dream... that a GeoMentor sparks a fire that keeps burning after they leave the classroom. If someone asked you why they should learn about GIS and/or geography, how would you respond in one sentence?   The kids in school right now are the meme generation; they communicate visually. That means they're primed to communicate with GIS! I want the world to catch on to this perfect match and put GIS in as many classrooms as possible. Email: MrsSinclairMaps@gmail.com Website: FAIS ArcGIS Online Organization Page Twitter: @MrsSinclairMaps ... View more

The latest GeoMentor newsletter is out! Vol. 6, No. 3 for June 2020 (emailed out on June 30th - so just making that 'June' qualification and perfectly hitting the halfway point of the year!). Check it out for GeoMentor reports from the field, resources for GIS and equity issues, and more. Questions, comments, activities or resources to share?  Contact us at geomentors@aag.org.  ... View more

Each month we feature GeoMentor volunteers to showcase the wonderful talent available in our community to assist K-12 schools. Read our full collection of GeoMentor spotlights   online . Want to be featured?  Information is available on our   program website . Name:  Bethany Hall Position/Job and Affiliation:   GIS Coordinator with Consolidated Utility District of Rutherford County What was your favorite class in K-12?   CAD and art classes How did you first learn about and/or use GIS?  A friend introduced me to GIS as I was a draftsman at a local electric utility in 2001. A year later, I quit my full-time job and took a part-time position with the City of Murfreesboro's Planning Department to learn GIS as a GIS Technician. Since 2002, I have been working in GIS   Name one thing you love about GIS and/or geography : Topology   Why did you want to volunteer as a GeoMentor? I love talking about GIS and introducing others to how they can solve problems.   What kind of GeoMentor volunteer opportunity and experience are you looking   for? I enjoy talking to high school students about career opportunities in GIS. I've helped young people and even semi-retired folks change careers.   If someone asked you why they should learn about GIS and/or geography, how would you respond in one sentence? GIS allows my analytical and artistic parts of my brain to dance while solving problems.   Email: bhall1821@outlookcom or bhall@cudrc.com Websites : LinkedIn Twitter : @bhall1821 ... View more

Each month we feature GeoMentor volunteers to showcase the wonderful talent available in our community to assist K-12 schools. Read our full collection of GeoMentor spotlights   online . Want to be featured?  Information is available on our   program website . Name:  Michael Camponovo Position/Job and Affiliation: GIS Outreach Coordinator, Geography Department, University of Tennessee Knoxville What was your favorite class in K-12? Survey of Literature with Gloria Oster at Sullivan South High School. I always liked to read but she introduced me to so many new authors and literary styles. How did you first learn about and/or use GIS?  I was an undergraduate student at TN Technological University in Cookeville, TN studying Soil Science and my advisor said I should take “one of those computer mapping classes” as an elective. I haven’t stopped learning about GIS since then.   Name one thing you love about GIS and/or geography : I love the interdisciplinary nature of GIS, I have the opportunity to work with so many talented professionals and researchers to help them answer questions and solve problems that I otherwise would never know existed.   Why did you want to volunteer as a GeoMentor? I want young people in Tennessee to know that geography and GIS are a viable career path that lead to a lot challenging and engaging opportunities.   What kind of GeoMentor volunteer opportunity and experience are you looking   for? My biggest goal right now is to help classroom teachers find ways to integrate GIS into their already existing curriculum… but that hasn’t stopped us from visiting schools with our augmented reality sandbox, our portable stream table, or our SimTable to help teach physical geography concepts.   If someone asked you why they should learn about GIS and/or geography, how would you respond in one sentence?  Everything happens somewhere.   Email:  mcampono@utk.edu Websites: UTK GIS Lab; MEGA:BITESS Academy; Opioids in Tennesee storymap; Tennessee Geographic Alliance Open Data Portal Twitter: @mcamponovo ... View more

Each month we feature GeoMentor volunteers to showcase the wonderful talent available in our community to assist K-12 schools. Read our full collection of GeoMentor spotlights   online . Want to be featured?  Information is available on our   program website . Name:  Deborah Huber, GISP Position/Job and Affiliation: GIS Analyst, NAVFAC EURAFCENT, GeoReadiness Center Naples, Italy What was your favorite class in K-12?  Marine Biology How did you first learn about and/or use GIS?  I was a CAD Tech and used .shp files to start concept plans for laying out new subdivisions for rezoning applications. My GIS guy had to take a month off, so he taught me how to extract my own .shp files. I was hooked and eventually took over his job when he left for an Environmental Engineering firm. I followed him there a year later. We are still friends.   Name one thing you love about GIS and/or geography: I was fascinated by my Dad’s National Geographic magazines as a kid. I’d read every bit of every issue – and especially loved the maps. GIS is a way to “visit” a place without actually traveling there. Now that I am working this contract in Italy, I’m able to visit in-person some of the places I’d only seen in aerial imagery. Bonus: The famous Map Gallery at the Vatican is just an hour train ride away!   Why did you want to volunteer as a GeoMentor? My previous employer had an annual STEM program. The students spend a week with us and we teach them about our career paths – Architectural, Engineering…and GIS. Most kids walk in having no idea what GIS is. It was great to see their eyes light up as they realize they’ve been using GIS for years (navigating in their cell phones). Now they have a small idea of that process...as well as how data is collected using Trimble equipment and cellphone apps. What kind of GeoMentor volunteer opportunity and experience are you looking for? I’m hoping once I get settled in here that we can start a STEM program for the local students. If someone asked you why they should learn about GIS and/or geography, how would you respond in one sentence? Because EVERYTHING is SOMEWHERE! Let that sink in. Knowing what “it” is and where “it” is, is SO VITAL to keeping society running – emergency services, logistics, asset management, infrastructure….everything comes back to what and where. It is inescapable. To me, GIS is like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle – all the data and geometry fits together to make an image of what really exists in the world. Email: Deborah.Huber.STX@gmail.com ... View more