IMAGE OF THE WEEK
In Zagor, Morocco, watermelon production represents a general push toward the intensification of agricultural production and aggregation of smaller farms.The production of watermelons in this region relies entirely on pumping groundwater to irrigate desert fields which represents a radical departure from the traditional oasis agriculture built around date palms which has sustained this region for millennia. While watermelon has been viewed as an attractive commodity to generate increased economic activity, it has introduced a new set of interrelated and converging problems. Caption and Image: Cameron Franz
GOOD NEWS
Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) is participating again in the Centre Safe Holiday Sponsorship Program. This year SWIG is sponsoring a family of three (two children: a boy and a girl, both are 15 years old), and again the target is to raise $250. The deadline for donations is December 9. Anyone who wishes to contribute can deliver donations to Jacklyn Weier’s office (335 Walker Building), mailbox, or over a digital medium (Venmo: @Jacklyn-Weier; Paypal: jacklynweier@gmail.com).
Alex Klippel will speak at the Sustainability Showcase, noon to 1:30 p.m., December 6, in 233AB HUB. He will talk about “Extended Realities-Creating Visceral Experiences for Sustainability.” For more information and to register.
COFFEE HOUR
Coffee Hour with Steve Norman
A “perfect storm” or the “new normal”?: Seeking resilience among Southern Appalachian forests and people after epic fire”
Wildland fire has long been a part of the Southern Appalachian landscape, but for decades wildfires were kept small with limited impacts to communities. But the area burned has sharply increased in recent decades and this resurgence reached a crescendo in the hot drought of 2016 when over 140,000 acres burned across state, federal and private lands. These fires forced the evacuation of thousands and led to an unprecedented and costly suppression effort. Tennessee’s Sevier County fires, in particular, destroyed 2,400 structures, killed 14 and injured hundreds, suggesting there is a pressing need for adaptation. Yet community and urban forest resilience are arguably more about “mountain tough” rebuilding than adaptive remaking. This presentation will review what we know about fire in this region, map the pattern of problematic fire that seems to be emerging, then communicate the various causes of our shifting fire regime in a way that relates to what can be done to mitigate risks.
- Friday, December 6, 2019
- Refreshments are offered in 319 Walker Building at 3:30 p.m.
- Lecture begins in 112 Walker Building at 4 p.m.
- Coffee Hour to Go on Zoom
- More information about Coffee Hour and view previously recorded talks
NEWS
Geographer invests in education to open doors for others
Growing up in a segregated part of Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, Tony Hutchinson didn’t see a lot of the kids in his neighborhood going on to college. Even though several members of his family had graduated from teacher’s colleges — for him — it didn’t seem like an option.
Center for Immersive Experiences opens at Penn State (Video)
When you think of virtual reality you may think of entertainment and video games. But VR is being used more and more by businesses and schools. Instructors and students say the new Center for Immersive Experiences takes research to a whole new reality.
“When I first came to Penn State, I had no idea what I wanted to study and then I was introduced to one of the spaces on campus that had virtual reality and I said, “That what I want to do,” Talia Potochny, Penn State Student, said.
Our best bet against tick infestations might be fire
Erica Smithwick is quoted
People hate ticks. In fact, they hate them so much that folks are willing to deal with the hazards that accompany fire, like smoke, in order to reduce their populations. That’s what Pennsylvania State University professor of geography Erica Smithwick learned during a survey of public attitudes towards controlled fires in northeastern regions of the United States like New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
From The New York Times
New York’s Subway Map Like You’ve Never Seen If Before
Designed in 1979, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s map is a record of how graphic design, politics and geography have shaped New York over the past 40 years.
Use our animated guide to travel around the city and see how the map evolved.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
Geospatial Information Visualization and Extended Reality Displays
Arzu Çöltekin, Amy L. Griffin, Aidan Slingsby, Anthony C. Robinson, Sidonie Christophe, Victoria Rautenbach, Min Chen, Christopher Pettit, Alexander Klippel
Chapter in Manual of Digital Earth
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9915-3_7
In this chapter, we review and summarize the current state of the art in geovisualization and extended reality (i.e., virtual, augmented and mixed reality), covering a wide range of approaches to these subjects in domains that are related to geographic information science. We introduce the relationship between geovisualization, extended reality and Digital Earth, provide some fundamental definitions of related terms, and discuss the introduced topics from a human-centric perspective. We describe related research areas including geovisual analytics and movement visualization, both of which have attracted wide interest from multidisciplinary communities in recent years. The last few sections describe the current progress in the use of immersive technologies and introduce the spectrum of terminology on virtual, augmented and mixed reality, as well as proposed research concepts in geographic information science and beyond. We finish with an overview of “dashboards”, which are used in visual analytics as well as in various immersive technologies. We believe the chapter covers important aspects of visualizing and interacting with current and future Digital Earth applications.