FAIRMONT created by Barb MacLennan using NASA Landsat Imagery with the Your Name in Landsat Tool

🔗 NASA Landsat “Your Name in Landsat” Tool

Making Spaces of Possibility at Fairmont State

Fairmont State University celebrates Making Spaces of Possibility (Geography Awareness Week + International Education Week). Geography, geospatial technologies, and global learning connect our campus to the world. 

Geography Awareness Week, International Education Week, GIS Day, and Open GIS Day
Fairmont State University celebrates Geography Awareness Week, established in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and National Geographic to emphasize the importance of geography in education, policy, and everyday life. Each November, schools, universities, and communities highlight how geography deepens our understanding of places, connects people across cultures, and prepares us to plan for the future.

Building on this tradition, GIS Day, launched in 1999 with support from Esri founder Jack Dangermond, showcases the power of Geographic Information Systems to solve real-world problems. Open GIS Day extends the celebration by focusing on open-source geospatial tools and data, making spatial available to everyone (and on maps on your mobile phone... look for the little OpenStreetMap name).

International Education Week (IEW) is celebration of the the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. This joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education is promotes programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn, and exchange experiences.

Learn more: Geography Awareness Week | GIS Day | Open GIS Day

Geography of Thanksgiving in North America 

Some geography for your break: 

The Great Thanksgiving Listen (StoryCorps)

The Great Listen encourages people of all ages to create an oral history of our times by recording an interview with an elder, mentor, friend, or someone they admire. These interviews become part of the StoryCorps Archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, creating a valuable resource for future historians. https://storycorps.org/discover/the-great-thanksgiving-listen/

Mapping the Thanksgiving Harvest: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d33a1386d15d4fce82462e3db8686549

Pardoning Pickles (Tom Baker is a well-known GIS educator) https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36350874550e400db710fae02136813d

How do Thanksgivings in the U.S. and Canada differ: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/canadian-american-thanksgiving-different

Geo-Mexico Thanksgiving: (think diffusion on an early map of North America) https://geo-mexico.com/?p=5449

Thanksgiving Resources, including the image below, from Geography Education https://geographyeducation.org/articles/thanksgiving-resources/