Surveying, Mapping and GIS: education

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Pennsylvania Surveyor's Conference 2008

Posted by Dave Smith On 1/20/2008 09:36:00 AM 0 comments

I am looking forward to going to the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors' 2008 Conference. It kicks off tomorrow in Hershey, PA... There I will catch up with some of my old surveying colleagues and friends, as well as ping them on many of the other things that I've been dealing with, such as work on updating the NCEES Model Law via their Uniform Procedures and Legislative Guidelines Committee (UPLG) and Continuing Professional Competency for Land Surveyors as recently introduced via legislation in Pennsylvania - and potentially subject to an updated legislative effort, as well as many of the other things I work toward, such as data standards and geodesy, and many other plates spinning and hats I wear.

I am presently wrapping up a weekend spent with the UPLG Committee in Florida - which again raises some of the questions of defining practice, as regulated by law - with particular, sensitive crossover issues in Surveying being GIS and Photogrammetry, but also Engineering and other fields.

$50k in Scholarships for Geospatial Tradecraft

Posted by Dave Smith On 2/28/2007 12:56:00 PM 0 comments

Via GISuser.com:

USGIF Accepting Applications for 2007 Scholarship Program

Foundation to Award $50,000 to Promising Students Studying the Geospatial Tradecraft

HERNDON, Va.--The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) is currently accepting entries for its 2007 USGIF Scholarship Program.

All graduate and undergraduate students studying fields relating to the geospatial tradecraft are encouraged to apply. USGIF also will award scholarships to well-qualified high school seniors planning to enter a geospatial- or GIS-related program at the college or university level. Applications can be found on the Foundation’s website at www.usgif.org/Education_Scholarships.aspx.

“We are pleased to again be able to offer scholarships at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels as we help provide for the future of the geospatial intelligence tradecraft,” said USGIF President and Chairman K. Stuart Shea.

Students have until June 1, 2007, to submit their applications. USGIF plans to award more than $50,000 in scholarships. The number of scholarships awarded will be based on the number of qualified applications and the selection of the Foundation’s Scholarship Committee. Applications will be evaluated on a peer-to-peer basis in each of the four categories, assessing the qualifications of Ph.D. candidates relative to other Ph.D. candidates, master’s candidates to other master’s candidates, and so on. Winners will be announced in early-August.

Last year, USGIF recognized 12 promising future contributors to the geospatial intelligence tradecraft: two Ph.D. candidates, four master’s candidates, three undergraduates and three high school seniors. High school winners received $2,000 and the other winners received $5,000.

“USGIF’s commitment to supporting the education and academic success of students interested in the geospatial intelligence tradecraft is paramount,” said Shea. “We carry out our academic mission with the same passion as we have for supporting our national security objectives.”

USGIF is a Virginia-based non-stock, not-for-profit corporation. The Foundation is dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and developing a stronger community of interest between government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals whose mission focus is the development and application of geospatial intelligence data and geo-processing resources to address national security objectives. USGIF produces the Nation’s Premier Intelligence Event, the GEOINT Symposium, which takes place this year Oct. 21-24 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. For more information on the Foundation and GEOINT, visit http://www.usgif.org/.

Congratulations to St. Thomas More

Posted by Dave Smith On 2/26/2007 08:53:00 PM 0 comments

To follow up on a prior post, congratulations to St. Thomas More school of Baton Rouge, LA for their win in the Engineers' Week Future City competition. These kids will have a bright future.

National Engineers Week

Posted by Dave Smith On 2/20/2007 06:40:00 AM 0 comments

February 18th - 24th is National Engineers Week, with a number of events and items of interest associated with it.

There are, in particular, numerous initiatives and fun events toward getting kids interested in engineering, and toward fostering a love for the math, science and principles underlying engineering:

There are a number of engineering resources for kids at Discover Engineering - such as PBS Kids' Cyberchase (one of my 5-year-old son's favorites), "New Faces of Engineering" to meet young engineers, PBS Kids' ZOOM, virtual bridge building, and plenty more.

"Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is February 22nd: http://www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/girlsday.shtml

Another fun one is the Future City competition: http://www.futurecity.org/

Check it all out at EWeek: http://www.eweek.org

Watch out for Design Squad

Posted by Dave Smith On 2/17/2007 12:51:00 PM 1 comments

Tune in for Design Squad, a new show premiering this week on PBS in selected markets... The show is geared toward promoting engineering and design principles for young students. With each episode, the show pits two teams against each other, and presents them with an engineering channel to solve independently, as teams.

The two teams, "Red Team" and "Blue Team" then pit their design against that of the other team in a competition. The members of the winning team then gain 100 points. For the next episode, the members of the teams are then scrambled to form new Red and Blue teams, and are then presented with another design challenge. Ultimately, as the design challenges conclude, the kid who emerges with the most points is granted a $10,000 college scholarship from Intel's foundation.

NCEES, to which I am a member, is quite proud to be one of the major sponsors of this effort, and I got a preview of the first, "Need For Speed" episode.

Pennsylvania Surveyors' Conference 2007

Posted by Dave Smith On 1/27/2007 10:20:00 AM 0 comments

I was able to enjoy some time at the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors' 2007 Conference. It was great to see many old friends again, such as the great folks at PSLS that put the conference on, the Penn State Wilkes-Barre Surveying faculty (they have an excellent program there - I was fortunate to be able to tag along as an observer in the last ABET visit to Penn State, and have known Tom Seybert since my own days at Penn State as a student), as well as many fellow surveyors, PAMAGIC members, POBers and other folks - the conversation was great, I got a lot of input and thoughts on Continuing Professional Competency, data standards and geodesy, and many other things swirling around in my life of late.

My focus was to attend some of the GPS sessions, and though I was tied up with many other things, I was actually able to attend some, such as the "Horizontal Control Survey with GPS " session by GPS guru Dr. James P. Reilly, and the "Static GPS Post-Processing" session by Brian Naberezny, of PSU and University of Maine.

I also greatly enjoyed the excellent presentation put on by Patrick Lee, as a Daniel Boone re-enactor. As a pioneer in his westward movements, Daniel Boone was involved in surveying and land grants - and some of my own Searcy ancestors were colleagues of Boone, and were also surveyors in early Kentucky.

Patrick Lee as Daniel Boone

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cartography, conference, continuing education, continuing professional competency, continuinged, education, engineering, events, genealogy, geo, geodesy, geodetic, Geospatial, GIS, GLONASS, GPS, history, map, mapping, maps, Penn State, Pennsylvania, photogrammetry, professional, professional practice, PSU, spatial, surveying

Continuing Education

Posted by Dave Smith On 1/27/2007 09:01:00 AM 0 comments

With the passage of Senate Bill 655 mandating continuing education for Pennsylvania surveyors, engineers and geologists, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will have 18 months to develop the rules and implementation. These will then go through the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and other bodies for review.

As President of the State Registration Board for Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists, I have appointed a Board subcommittee to expedite getting the regulations package put together. Our counsel has provided some implementation details from other professions in Pennsylvania which require continuing education, and we will try to overlay the model regulations and guidelines developed by NCEES, and try to harmonize these.

My hope is to develop a system which provides a robust and valuable continuing education system that will benefit professionals, along with a balance toward transparency and ease of facilitation and management - particularly as we have many licensees who are registered in multiple states, as well as licensees with multiple licenses (PE/PLS) and so on.

I'd appreciate any thoughts and input from fellow professionals on implementation of continuing professional competency - comments below, or email me at dsmith (at) synergist-tech.com...

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Pennsylvania Surveyor's Conference 2008

$50k in Scholarships for Geospatial Tradecraft

Congratulations to St. Thomas More

National Engineers Week

Watch out for Design Squad

Pennsylvania Surveyors' Conference 2007

Continuing Education

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