Geographic Information Systems
It seems like Tora Johnson knows everybody on campus. She’s director of the college’s all new GIS Service Center, opened in Fall 2008 and located in Torrey Hall. A recent $740,500 grant from the National Science Foundation has helped expand the breadth and scope of activities at the center, including the addition of state-of-the-art software for analyzing oceanographic and satellite imagery, additional workstations, and expanded classroom space.
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology is a relatively new field, made possible by the quantum advances in the development of low-cost yet powerful personal computer systems. GIS refers to the computer software, data, and methods that allow users to easily collect, store and manage spatial information, create maps, and analyze spatial relationships. It’s basically a very sophisticated way to organize and analyze map information. With GIS, you can ask geographic questions, solve geographic problems, or communicate geographic ideas. Every day, all around the country, people use GIS to answer questions such as:
• How many rural U.S. residents lack health insurance, and where do they live?
• Is there a pattern to the spread of swine flu?
• How would new Homeland Security regulations impact international air traffic?
• Where are the most profitable markets for U.S. fish products?
• Where is the best location for a new nuclear waste storage facility?
• Which national parks are most visited, and where do those visitors come from?
Johnson sees GIS as a tool to support and facilitate research programs across all disciplines at the college, and as a way for students to reach out into the surrounding communities. At some point, almost everybody ends up in the GIS lab, whether they’re studying science, anthropology, or community planning. For Johnson, it’s about seeing students apply the theories she teaches to real issues.
A Real-World Education
“This kind of real-world education is more challenging than sitting in a classroom. I can’t always predict the outcome or the pitfalls we’ll face along the way, but there simply isn’t a better way to learn than by doing, overcoming obstacles and challenges, and finding elegant solutions to new problems.”
Teri Dane ’06, from Tilton, NH, graduated from UMaine-Machias with a degree in Marine Biology and was hired as a GIS consultant by Project SHARE, an organization that maps salmon habitat. She now works as a GIS analyst/technician for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.
“When I was first introduced to GIS I found it difficult, but by second semester my opinion changed. It came to me as though it was second nature. If it wasn’t for the support and encouragement of Tora, I wouldn’t be a GIS consultant. She helped me apply what I learned in the classroom to real jobs.”
GIS and Service Learning
Every GIS course includes community service learning, which gets students out of the lab into the local towns. Using mapping skills honed at the GIS Center, student interns work with local land trusts and municipalities to provide data, training, mapping and analysis for comprehensive plans, land use and conservation programs.
A good example of this type of service learning is Johnson’s Advanced Projects in Conservation course, fall 2007. Through a grant from the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, UMM students worked with three Washington County land trusts to develop a regional strategic land conservation plan. The UMM GIS Service Center helped the participating land trusts identify the region’s assets and resources, gather GIS data, and model and map the land trusts’ priorities.
Early in the semester, students met with land trust staff to define the scope of the study. Topics included areas such as habitat, hydrology, scenic resources, recreational resources, demography and economics, topography, and land use. Students used the information they gathered to create models for identifying high-priority conservation lands based upon conservation goals specified by the collaborating land trusts. Students presented their findings to the land trusts and eventually their work was incorporated into the draft of the regional strategic conservation plan.
