Welcome to the Northern Illinois University Department of Geography blog pages! Refer to these pages to stay abreast of past, present and planned activities within our Department. For more detailed information concerning our history, degree programs and faculty, please visit the NIU Department of Geography website.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Department Gears Up For Nat'l Geography Awareness Week '09

The week of November 15-21 is National Geography Awareness week. The Geography Department will host several events to celebrate the event. Career-related events for students include a panel discussion with geography faculty about how to apply for graduate school on November 18th from 12-1pm in 103 Davis Hall. We will be hosting a GIS Night event from 6-8:30pm on November 18th in 114 Davis Hall (See last year's blog entry concerning GIS Night '08). Our celebrations of Geography Awareness Week culminate on November 20th with an annual Career Day event for students, alumni, and friends of Geography and Meteorology, that begins at 1pm in 121 Davis Hall.



Career Day is a long-running tradition in the Geography Department, when our alumni return to talk about the importance of geographic knowledge in the real world, share information about their work experiences, advise faculty and students on the status of geographic and meteorological careers, keep us abreast of educational requirements in these fields, and recruit students for internships and other career related experiences. This year, we are also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the commencement of our Ph.D. program in January 2010.

The National Geographic Society also sponsors activities related to this years theme of "Get lost in mapping: Find your place in the world!" From November 15-21, go to GeographyAwarenessWeek.org for games, activities, and lessons about mapping that you can do at home or at school, brought to you by National Geographic and partner organizations. Explore maps big and small, high-tech and low-tech!

At GeographyAwarenessWeek.org, you can piece together a poster-size map for your bedroom wall or a giant map for your school gymnasium. Take a virtual world tour with Google Earth and watch a video that explains how today's geospatial revolution is changing everything from shipping to warfare. Test your skills with the Expedition 2 game and a Mystery Location quiz. You can even join 100,000 "map activists" by participating in a blog-a-thon, hosting a Geography Awareness Week event, or signing up for the new GeoMentor program.

Post contributed by Dr. Sarah Blue