The FIU Geographic Information Systems Center (GIS) Center and the Map and Imagery Using Services (MIUS) held the 2013 GIS mini conference day this past March 29th at the Modesto Maidique Campus (MMC).
On the same day parallel activities were held at the Biscayne Bay Campus (BBC). The theme for this year’s event was Drawing new connection in time and space. Some of the events included the workshop Utilizing GIS and US Census Data by Instructor at the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at FIU, Derrick Scott. A workshop that targeted students who were particularly interested in utilizing geospatial analysis tools afforded by ESRI’s ArcGIS Desktop software. The event also coordinated an all day poster viewing open to all FIU faculty and students, as well as to non-FIU members. Participants were able to submit their work pertaining to the GIS theme: GeoHumanities: Drawing New Connections in Time & Space.
Second year Landscape Architecture student, Ryan Holmes won the Student Poster contest at this year’s competition. Holmes began working on the poster project since the start of the 2013 Spring semester in studio with Landscape faculty Ebru Ozer. It focused on information gathered from Miami Beach Aerial Photography and incorporated the study and documentation of the original ecology and infrastructure of Miami Beach in 1924. The project uses this information to create graphs that use line density to show the loss in land and aquatic wildlife. All of his information used for his project was provided by Research Geologist and GIS Coordinator at FIU, Peter Harlem.
Holmes’s work was not only evaluated based on the relevance to the 2013 GIS Day theme, but also to the visual appeal and intellectual clarity. He was rewarded with a one year license to any GIS or remote sensing software license by the Map and Imagery Using Services. Holmes plans to remain involved in such activities.