Game On!

Here is a nice article in Nature (Game on, 20 July 2017) summarizing some of the available games that teach scientific concepts.

• XTRONAUT let's you explore space.
• Go Extinct! is a simple card game about, well, extinctions.
• Keep Cool let's you 'gamble' with climate change. There is also a multi-player online version Keep Cool mobil (sadly only in German at this time).

MindMode

MindMode looks like a great idea/mind/concept-mapping tool. Unfortunately, it only runs on Mac and iOS (and costs $$$).

Campus Technology 2017

Here's their annual survey: 2017 Teaching With Technology Survey. Now, these surveys are a bit biased from the start and so its is important to parse the results keeping that in mind. Still, a few things are interesting:

• Faculty and students agree: ed-tech is good for teaching and learning (Page 29). This result is not surprising given the biased source.
• Students do not have/use tablets (Page 29).
• Faculty feel confident in their ed-tech abilities (Page 34). Again, not a surprise result given the biased source.
• Top-10 Technologies that will be dead and gone within 10 years (Page 36), for example clickers, non-interactive projectors, traditional LMS, and computer labs.
• Top-10 Technologies that will become important over the next 10 years (Page 37), for example VR/AR, 3D everything, next-get LMS (?), and the Internet of Things.

Population.io

Population.io is an interactive data viz by the World Data Lab: just enter your birthday, country of birth, and sex at birth to see how you fit (statistically) into everybody on the planet.

The ArcGIS Book

Esri released a new version (I think) The ArcGIS Book in-time for the annual Esri UC in San Diego. It contains 10 chapters organized around 10 'big ideas' related to spatial science (aka. Geography!).

Mapping Cities with AI

Here are three interesting examples of using Google Street View and crowdsourcing to train AI algorithms to 'map' conditions in cities.

• Seen on Maps Mania: Project Sidewalk is a classic example of crowdsourcing, now used for training machine learning algorithms. Cool and also somewhat scary.
• Place Pulse has been around for a while and aims to quantitatively recognize which areas of a city are perceived as wealthy, modern, safe, lively, active, unique, central, adaptable or family friendly.
• StreetChange takes a similar approach, albeit focused to detecting urban change from Street View photos taken several years part. 

Histograms

Histograms are easy...in-theory. But things can easily get a lot more complex and all that is nicely illustrated and discussed in What's so hard about histograms?

Need a Chart? Need a Tool?

The Chartmaker Directory is an attempt to connect types of charts with the most appropriate tools to make them. More about the effort here.

Sea Level Rise: Hard Choices Ahead

When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices Ahead for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities (2017) is a comprehensive report from the UCS that you can explore in different ways: as a traditional report, as an interactive story map, as the underlying data (as MS Excel files), or a podcast. Or, just view the fact sheet for the affected states.

EJSCREEN

EJSCREEN is the Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool from the EPA. The website offers an interactive mapping tool, tutorials, technical data, and the underlying data for download.

But, what can I do?

That's the question: what can I do as an individual to slow/stop global warming? Well, the infographic below can help with that. This is based on a recent paper in Environmental Research Letters (summary here).

Why Python is the Future of Web GIS?

Well, there you have it: some arguments as to Why Python is the Future of Web GIS?

Drone Resources

A simple compilation of papers and other resources related to drones and their applications.

• Rossini et al. (2018): Rapid melting dynamics of an alpine glacier with repeated UAV photogrammetry. Geomorphology, 304, 159-172. UAVs and SfM.
• 8 tips that will let you achieve survey-grade accuracy of your drone survey.
• Wigmore and Mark (2017): Monitoring tropical debris-covered glacier dynamics from high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry, Cordillera Blanca, Peru. The Cryosphere, 11, 2463-2480.
• Ryan et al. (2017): Derivation of High Spatial Resolution Albedo from UAV Digital Imagery: Application over the Greenland Ice Sheet. Frontiers in Earth Science, May 2017. Using a basic consumer grade camera to measure albedo. Not quite as simple as it sounds, but very cool!
• Dabski et al. (2017): UAV-based detection and spatial analysis of periglacial landforms on Demay Point (King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Geomorphology, 290, 29-38. Home-made professional fixed-wing drone paired with a Canon 700D DSLR.
• O'Connor et al. (2017): Cameras and settings for aerial surveys in the geosciences: Optimising image data. Progress in Physical Geography, 41(3), 325-344. Lot's of details about cameras and lenses.
• Krsak et al. (2016): Use of low-cost UAV photogrammetry to analyze the accuracy of a digital elevation model in a case study. Measurement, 91, 276-287. Using a DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ to create a high-quality DEM.

Prezi is better than PPT

Prezi offers a so-called zoomable interface = an infinite canvas that is navigated = animated by zooming and panning. And that's the key - it forces you the presenter and the audience to process information spatially (in addition to sequentially). The linear slide decks of PPT cannot do that.

That's at least the theory. A linear sequence is at least one thing: simple. Prezis can easily get messy and confusing in my experience.

But, Prezis are cool and the coolness translates to a cooler and more knowledgeable presenter in the minds of the audience.

More here: Scientifically Speaking, Your PowerPoint Sucks

Must have Drone Apps for every Drone Pilot

There are plenty of these compilations out there, so here's one of them: Must have Drone Apps for every Drone Pilot.

How accurate is your drone survey?

Nice and informative post: How accurate is your drone survey?

RapidMiner

Big Data Data Mining - here's your tool: RapidMiner

Mapping Extreme Weather

The folks at Carbon Brief created a nice interactive web map attributing weather extremes to climate change - here's their conclusion: "Carbon Brief's analysis suggests 63% of all extreme weather events studied to date were made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change. Heatwaves account for nearly half of such events (46%), droughts make up 21% and heavy rainfall or floods account for 14%."

Showing Topography

C-ROADS World Climate

The C-ROADS World Climate Simulator has been around for a while, but now comes with a new and nice-looking interface.

Our World in Data

Our World in Data produces some of the best data viz I have seen, for example Life expectancy:

• As an interactive map (with time-animation)
• As a customizable chart
• As various graphics formats
• As link and embed code (see below)
• As the underlying data

How to spot a misleading graph

Can You Draw The States?

Give it a try at Quiz: See How Well You Can Draw All 50 States and see what 'your' USA would look like!

Google Blocks

I don't know anything about it, but Google Blocks seems to be the thing to do for the VR/AR 'world' - see more at Google Is Becoming The Adobe Of VR.