Landscape photography

The landscape photography of Daniel Jones probably got more expensive this week when it was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. But it deserves a close look since it really captures landscapes nicely.

Backyard Habitat

Ecology & Evolution
Graduate Program Seminar

Dr. Susannah Lerman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

"Beyond benefits for people: How backyard habitats support ecosystem services for wildlife"

Thursday, December 3, 2015
4:00 p.m.
Alampi Room, Marine and Coastal Sciences

Mapping Global Migration

Esri has posted a very cool interactive tool for exploring global patterns of migration.

Team thinking

In class we recently talked about teamwork and the importance of understanding different approaches of team members. The Harvard Business Review just published an interesting piece about 8 different workplace thinking styles. The diagram is helpful and worth looking at for a few minutes.

Statewide GIS meeeting

The quarterly meetings of the NJ Geospatial Forum are a great place to meet local GIS professionals and hear about some of the issues on their minds.

The NJ Geospatial Forum will meet Thursday, December 3rd at 10 a.m.
All are welcome to attend the meeting in the ITC room at OIT 300 Riverview Plaza, Trenton NJ 08611

Happy GIS Day

Once again, GIS Day is here. May all your geospatial dreams come true. To celebrate, we have brought back a few of the graphic reminders of the early years:

A special thanks to Caroline Phillipuk, whose GIS Day posters outlived the celebrations.

GIS Day is almost here

Join us in celebrating our 5th Annual GIS Awareness Day event at Rutgers
University! Learn how maps, GPS and satellite imagery are used for
things like: community mapping, invasive species spread, watershed
management, road networks and more!  Speakers will represent a variety
of national and regional organizations focusing on geospatial analysis.

The evening will consist of a series of lightning talks, followed by
refreshments/poster session, then a panel discussion on careers in GIS,
and a dessert social to round out the event.

Food + networking + free giveaways!

Nov 18th, 6-9 pm
Rutgers University, Marine Sciences Building (71 Dudley Road, New
Brunswick, NJ)
Free parking in lots: 97, 98A and 98B

Our Facebook site:
https://www.facebook.com/Rutgers-GIS-Day-434169550105881/timeline/

Everyone is welcome to attend!

Organized by RU Intermediate Environmental Geomatics students.
Sponsored by the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Bias in remote sensing

Ever wonder why drones are an increasingly popular way to capture imagery? There are lots of reasons. But as Aaron Rothman points out in Places, "the apparently open visual access to the world afforded by satellite image systems is limited by vested government and corporate powers."

It is something worth pondering during this most special week, the week of GIS Day.

Friday Fotos: Cordoba

Millenials hunger for better food

When we hear reporting about the Millennials, it usually focuses on them as a generation of tech-savvy individualistic single adults, enjoying the best of urban living and reinventing modern culture. But a substantial portion of the millennials have come of age at a time when jobs are scarce and times are tough. This piece from Refinery29 takes a look at a group of young adults struggling, even with government assistance, to feed their families and get their lives on track. As it points out, "While food culture across the United States explodes, hunger rates have simultaneously risen."

Kate Orff

Kate Orff is becoming one of the best known landscape architects in the U.S., as shown by a Times profile of her at home.

National Parks

Today is the last day in the Byrne Seminar on National Parks and Parklands. The conversation will include a very brief discussion about International National Parks. One of the places that will get mentioned is Virunga National Park in the Congo. Virunga is the subject of a recent documentary available on Netflix that is powerful and important but also highlights how different their national parks are from ours. We contrasted it with the recent Ken Burns series on PBS about the U.S. National Parks: America's Best Idea. 

The links above are to YouTube-hosted previews for each. Compare and contrast.

Less driving is a problem

After years of encouraging people to drive less and take the train or bike, or at least drive a hybrid, it turns out that someone finally listened. Standard and Poor's reports that gas tax revenues are dropping because millennials are living more sustainably and healthier. And the problem is that we were counting on those revenues for road construction and maintenance.

The Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey isn't the only state struggling with this. But it isn't clear which states will be the first to recognize that this change in America's car culture is based on a dramatic generational change (not just a behavioral change) that might require some creative thinking about community priorities.