GIS Day brings games, fun and learning

The day is an open house of sorts as it celebrates IESA and its collaborations with alumni, businesses and presenters.

"People are welcome to just come by for part of the event and leave when they must. I know people have class and work and other things, so we really encourage everyone to swing by," Ignatius said. "We're going to have free food and speakers."

Some of the fun - with prizes - includes a GeoGuessr competition, a game where players attempt to identify a location based on Google Street View.

"It's hilarious how off you can be," Ignatius said. "You're sure it was New York, and you're actually in Paris."

Morgan Reimann lives in Gainesville, Georgia. She is president of the Geospatial Alliance and encourages everyone to attend and learn more about what the environmental spatial analysis degree program offers.

"It's an underrepresented field that is growing," she said. "It's important in everyday life. Urban planning, governments and different engineering styles wouldn't be a thing without GIS."

Reimann said people should attend even if they're hesitant or nervous. "It'll be informative. People will be able to socialize, network, have some food, play the GeoGuessr game. It's going to be a fun time," she said.
Reimann is completing her senior year in pursuit of a degree in environmental spatial analysis.

Ignatius said there will also be a competition that's a bit more serious: the student poster competition in which research completed by upper-level students is displayed and judged by faculty with the winner receiving $50 in Nigel Bucks.

Speakers will share their work experience in various fields involving GIS. Alumna Megan Touat will share about her work using geospatial science and remote sensing with the government at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Russell Lundstrom with the Army Corps of Engineers will discuss using GIS to manage Lake Lanier. Ben Cobb with the Georgia Forestry Commission and Becca Riser with the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper round out the list of speakers.

Rylee Chafin, a junior at UNG, pursuing a degree in environmental spatial analysis, will speak about her summer internship with NASA. Veteran student Jake Echols will speak on being a geospatial intelligence analyst, something he did during his five years of military service and is passionate about. Echols is from Cochran, Georgia, and serves as vice president of the alliance.

"You have your list of errands, which is data," he said. "Walmart is closer than Home Depot. So you go to Walmart because it's on the way to Home Depot. That's thinking spatially. That is GIS. We apply GIS in everything we do. We think spatially."

"What we liked about this collection of speakers is how it really shows how geospatial affects different parts of society," Ignatius said. "It's a whole assortment of experience."