I have lots of beautiful philosophical and public policy ideas relating to fairness, sharing, community, environmental, collaboration and empowerment. I am interested in learning about technologies that can help embody these ideas in a tangible and accessible way. Example: there is a 12 foot high plaster relief model 3d map of the Adirondacks on the wall of the great room at the Kelly Adirondack Center, formerly the home of Paul Schaefer, environmental leader and local builder and Renaissance man (self-educated but with great credit to the inspiration of his father’s liberal arts degree.) That map was the collaborative effort of 50 volunteers working together for a decade and I imagine how much those volunteers must have learned about the big picture of the Adirondacks in the process of creating it.

They were documenting in tangible terms a collective treasure that belongs to all of us New Yorkers, deeded in perpetuity by our constitution but not fully appreciated until leaders like Paul Schaefer used creative powers to bring it to our attention in many media–his writings on an old manual typewriter, his black and white silent documentary film on an early movie camera he borrowed from Irving Langmuir, and his great room 3d map. Important environmental laws have since been signed in ceremonies in front of that 3d map. Could we get Schenectady youth similarly engaged in creating 3d maps of their local environmental treasures (e.g. Central Park, Vale Cemetery, or the Union College campus itself or the surrounding foothill vistas) by supporting them in creating esthetically beautiful and tangibly powerful expressions of the terrain of their community spaces?

Alex Chaucer, Skidmore College

In this hour long MAKE session, participants will learn how digital mapping tools, such as ArcGIS Online and Google Earth, can be used for telling geographic stories and sharing online. Included in the session will be a hands on activity including mapping a spreadsheet of coordinates in ArcGIS Online, and georeferencing a historic map in Google Earth, creating a .kmz file, and creating a tour. Examples will be shown of other extensions of these tools in the digital humanities and other similar products. Session is geared toward the introductory user with no experience with mapping tools.

Prerequisite: Please come to the session with Google Earth installed on your computer and having created a free ArcGIS Online account with username and password.