11/28/11

Students at Lutherville Elementary School celebrated GIS Day, Wednesday, November 16, with a special lesson taught by Eric S. Cromwell, Baltimore County Public Schools coordinator of elementary science. GIS stands for geographic information systems, and the day is part of the annual Geography Awareness Week.

In both morning and afternoon sessions, Cromwell, along with representatives from Towson University’s Center for GIS and from the Community College of Baltimore County, introduced GIS to students and had them participate in related activities.

Follow-up lessons are scheduled for Thursday, December 1, at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. 

According to www.gis.com, “A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information.GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts.”

GIS Day activities take place in more than 80 countries. The sponsors of GIS Day include the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, the United States Geological Survey, The Library of Congress, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Esri. For more information about the day or about GIS, visit www.gis.com or www.gisday.com.