Social Sciences Newsblog

Students Create Web Map using GIS

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summer 2018

Student interns from Calumet and Houghton High Schools, under the guidance of Don Lafreniere (SS/GLRC), Ryan Williams (GISP/GLRC) and students from the Department of Social Sciences, recently launched a new WebGIS for the Calumet and Laurium region. The map can be found at calumetmap.com.

The WebGIS is the beginning of a multi-year partnership between many local organizations including Michigan Tech Social Sciences, the Geospatial Research Facility, Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region (WUPPDR), Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance (KEDA) and local municipalities to create a regional geographic information system (GIS) for local planning, economic development, heritage management, tourism and health promotion.

The WebGIS is an output of the NSF-funded Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers, “GRACE- GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education” project. GRACE is a multi-institution collaboration to bring GIS technologies to Michigan’s high school educators and intensive community-based internship experiences to high school students.

More about the GRACE project at Michigan Tech can be found in Unscripted.

Summer 2018-2

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On the Road

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Angie CarterAngie Carter presented at the Rural Sociological Society annual meeting in Portland, Oregon on July 27 and July 28th.

Carter also presented “Photovoice and Community Development: Women in Agriculture and the Transformation of Rural Spaces,” with her collaborator Claudia M. Prado-Meza (Universidad de Colima) and facilitated a panel “Putting the Sociological Imagination into Practice: Place, Power, and Praxis” with collaborators Ahna Kruzic (Pesticide Action Network North America,Oakland, California) and Gabrielle Roesch-McNally (USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, Oregon).

She also took part in a book reading and author talk about activism on July 30th at the Corvallis Public Library in Corvallis, Oregon with co-authors Kruzic and Roesch-McNally. Carter read her essay, “Homecoming,” about Iowans’ resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, included in the recently published edited volume “We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Women’s Political Action” (McFarland 2018).

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Lankton to Give Presentation on Quincy History

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Larry LanktonLocal historian, educator and author Larry Lankton (Emeritus SS) will present the latest in the Quincy Mine Hoist Association’s “History on the Hill” series at 7 p.m. Thursday (July 26) at the Quincy Mine 1894 Hoist House.

Lankton’s presentation is titled, “The National Park Service Arrives on Quincy Hill, 1978.” In the summer of 1978 a team from the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), a part of the National Park Service, conducted a 10-week study of the social history of the Quincy Mining Company.

Lankton led the HAER team in 1978 and moved to the Keweenaw three years later to continue his research and write about the local copper industry. Find out more about Lankton’s presentation.

History on the Hill presentations are free and open to the public.

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Keweenaw Time Traveler Introduces GIS Technologies to 4th Graders as Part of the KNHP Copper Traces Program

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CopperTraces1 CopperTraces2IHA PhD Student Michael Bleddynn and undergraduate students from the Historical Environments Spatial Analytics Lab used the Keweenaw Time Traveler to introduce 4th graders from around the region to how to use GIS technologies to see how communities change through time.  The activity was part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park’s CopperTraces program.

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Robins Awarded Research Excellence Fund (REF) Scholarship and Creativity Grant (SCG)

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Jonathan RobinsThe Vice President for Research Office announced the 2018 Research Excellence Fund (REF) awards and thanked the volunteer review committees, as well as the deans and department chairs, for their time spent on this important internal research award process.

This year we congratulate Jonathan Robins for receiving a Scholarship and Creativity Grant (SCG).

The REF Scholarship and Creativity Grant (SCG) provides support to encourage faculty to engage in scholarly research, learning, and creative activities to enhance professional development.

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Pischke Co-Authors Article on Transdisciplinary Research

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erin-pischke-personnelErin Pischke is one of the authors of the article, “Practicing what we preach: Reflections on the pros and cons of transdisciplinary research in Erongarícuaro, Mexico”. Revista Vínculos, Inicio 3(1).

ABSTRACT:
In November 2016, a group of students from the Americas participated
in an Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research funded
two-week course organized by professors from the National
Autonomous University of Mexico. The aim was to teach students and
young researchers how to collaborate with non-scientists to conduct
socioecological systems research in a transdisciplinary manner. This
article will review the benefits as well as the challenges to doing so.
It concludes with recommendations that other research teams can
follow when conducting similar research that crosses disciplinary and
international borders.

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