Loads of excitement during this geography awareness week – I spent Tuesday at an ASPRS event in Denver where much of the focus of discussion was on Landsat, and in particular, the future of Landsat and the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM). No doubt it will be interesting to see how this topic is managed by the new administration, although with such dramatic changes in our physical environment taking place there’s little doubt in my mind that this important resource will continue to be expanded enabling us to get a grip on some of the problems facing all of us. See more on LDCM at ldcm.nasa.gov. Recall, it wasn’t too long ago that a major, major announcement was made with Landsat 7 ETM+ Data Now being made available to users at No Charge (see http://glovis.usgs.gov/ or http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/EarthExplorer/).
Yesterday, to celebrate GIS Day, I took a trip over to the City of Loveland where the city’s GIS staff and some partners hosted a great event. Hourly presentations provided attendees with a glimpse at how the city is using GIS to manage their resources and facilities. Demos from the City Police Department revealed how residents can view and report crimes; an internal application enables planners to monitor and manage fleets of buses, snow plows, and other city vehicles; a project with wildlife biologists is studying patterns and migration routes of birds (this is bird haven around here) and how they are interacting with local air traffic at Loveland Airport. The team also gave an overview of the LOGIC system, the city’s online webmapping system which is today going live with a new version migrated to ArcGIS Server. LOGIC provides access to address and parcel data, and information on city parks, recreational facilities, and government assets. The City of Loveland has worked with ESRI to develop a Local Government Data Model – LOGIC being the real-life test-bed / result of this effort… congrats! You can fire up the Loveland LOGIC System here.
After leaving the City’s GIS Day I event I proceeeded over to my daughter’s second grade class where I gave a 30 minute session on intro to GIS, discussed the shrinking polar ice, provided a list of local GIS users, and looked at loads of cool maps and Geo-art on some cool posters courtesy of NASA and the ESRI Press Map Books. I left the class with some cool GIS Day goodies (thanks GIS Day team!), and several wall posters for the brand new, gold certified LEED [green] school. The Globe chocolates were a huge hit! Also way cool for the kids was the Getac rugged handheld device which in addition to running ArcPad GIS, can run the cool Bubbles Game! Loads of fun… I hope you had just as much fun on your GIS Day.