2011 GIS Day Held
November 17, 2011The eighth annual GIS Day was held on November 16th at the High Performance Computing Collaboratory building in the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park. The event is sponsored by Mississippi State's Department of Geosciences and the Geosystems Research Institute.
About 70 seventh and eighth graders from Columbus Middle School participated in the event where they learned to use geographic information systems to locate areas related to flooding, earthquakes and other forms of severe weather. Students from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Sciences in Columbus joined Mississippi State graduate students to help with the informative program. The students learned about the vital role that geography plays in understanding natural disasters by using GIS knowledge and technology to gain information about different natural disasters.
GIS Day is made possible by partnerships with the National Science Foundation-funded Initiating New Science Partnerships in Rural Education (INSPIRE) program at Mississippi State. GIS Day activities were scheduled nationwide Wednesday as part of Geography Awareness Week.