{"id":870,"date":"2017-01-29T14:59:32","date_gmt":"2017-01-29T14:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/?p=870"},"modified":"2017-01-29T14:59:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-29T14:59:32","slug":"geoinspirations-amy-work-owu-04-connecting-people-communities-geotechnology-and-the-environment-by-joseph-j-kerski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/?p=870","title":{"rendered":"GeoInspirations: Amy Work (OWU ’04) – Connecting People, Communities, Geotechnology, and the Environment by Joseph J. Kerski"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Directions Magazine<\/a><\/strong> and author Joseph Kerski<\/a> report on Amy Work<\/strong>, who graduated from OWU in 2004 with\u00a0Environmental Studies, Geography, and Urban Studies majors, and her work in southern Costa Rica in Directions Magazine’s GeoInspirations Series.<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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By Joseph Kerski<\/p>\n

I met Amy Work through the Teaching with Spatial Technology (TwiST) program that she conducted for educators at the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technologies in Auburn, New York.\u00a0 The goal of TwiST is to empower student discovery through GIS by teaching K-12 teachers and college faculty the skills and perspectives needed to teach with these tools.\u00a0 Each year, Amy actively grew the network of educators who are using the TwiST content effectively in their own instruction across the country.<\/p>\n

I also visited Amy a few times at Cayuga College and was consistently impressed by her ability to conduct research in remote sensing and environmental issues while simultaneously teaching numerous face-to-face and online courses.\u00a0 She was never content to teach just her own students; she has always been keen on teaching other faculty.<\/p>\n

Her zeal for making a positive difference in our world through geography and geotechnologies led her to Costa Rica, where she has been working closely with students, community leaders, and conservation organizations for the past few years. As a\u00a0Directions Magazine<\/em>\u00a0reader, you may already be familiar with Amy Work; she and Anne Haywood wrote an article on\u00a0applying geospatial technologies to solve local problems<\/a>\u00a0for our June 2015 edition.<\/p>\n

The seeds of Amy’s career were sown back in her high school mentorship program at the City of Westerville Ohio\u2019s Planning and Development Department.\u00a0 \u201cI thought I wanted to be a civil engineer, but this mentorship position, which evolved into a job during school breaks, including summer, introduced me to GIS,\u201d she said. \u201cThis was back in the 1990s when not many city governments were using GIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, in her freshman class at Ohio Wesleyan University, she took a course called Maps and GIS taught by geography and cartography professor John Krygier. After additional coursework in\u00a0 cultural geography and economic geography, she said, \u201cIt all made so much sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy ended up with a very impressive triple major in geography, urban studies, and environmental studies from Ohio Wesleyan University.\u00a0 She went on to pursue a master\u2019s degree in geography from Syracuse University, graduating in 2006.\u00a0 She then became the GIS coordinator at the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technologies housed at Cayuga College.<\/p>\n

One of Amy’s projects at the institute was to create\u00a0an interactive tool to foster analytical thinking about global climate change and the potential impact on human health<\/a>\u00a0by enabling investigations between climate and socioeconomic and health data. This tool and associated activities focused on real-world issues that people will continue to encounter as changes in precipitation and temperature values impact agricultural lands and food production. This further impacts access and quality of food, altering the availability of freshwater, and exposing greater numbers of people to malaria for the first time via new habitats for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.\u00a0 A critical component of this, and other projects Amy has been involved in, is training educators in the use of the tools and activities that help them and their students\u00a0 investigate the data and gain skills in critical thinking, spatial thinking, and geotechnologies.<\/p>\n

After connecting with Anita and Roger Palmer, founders of\u00a0GISetc.com<\/a>, Amy began working and living in Bahia Ballena, Costa Rica in 2012.\u00a0 Bahia Ballena is a unique community.\u00a0 It is the gateway to Marino Ballena National Park, one of the first marine protected areas in Latin America. Tourism related to marine life in the park is the primary income generator for the area. In this community of 3,000 residents, more than 200 individuals thus far have participated in an activity or event using GPS and GIS to map and analyze data.\u00a0 Projects with which Amy has been involved have included reducing trash through community partnerships, combating beach erosion, analyzing water quality, and mapping humpback whale sightings.\u00a0 She engages all of these with the help of GIS and field-collected and mapped data, but more importantly, with the help of the community.\u00a0 Her projects involve teachers, students, community officials, nonprofit organizations, businesses, parents, and others.\u00a0 Her work is funded by Geospatial Educators\u2019 Opportunities for Partnership Outreach Research and Training (Geoporter<\/a>), a nonprofit organization designed to send educators around the world to solve local issues with GIS.<\/p>\n

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When I asked Amy to identify what, or who, has been the most inspirational to her career, she replied, \u201cI don’t think I can pick just one class or person. There are so many people who have inspired me along the way, thus the reason I am where I am.\u00a0 However, in my career as a geospatial educator teaching other educators to use geospatial technologies, I had a great group of teachers from Hannibal School District participate [in the summer institutes].\u00a0 These teachers helped me merge my knowledge of geospatial technologies with what classroom teachers needed the most.\u00a0 Prior to these workshops, I had only taught GIS and remote sensing labs for technical skills.\u00a0 I began teaching GIS for the purpose of engaging youth in exploring their community and their world.\u00a0 Therefore, it is Bob Jones, Carol Burch, and Tom O’Neil to whom I owe so many thanks for not only sharing their knowledge, but becoming true friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the things I admire about Amy is that she actively connects with her alma mater.\u00a0 She has partnered with students and faculty at Ohio Wesleyan University, for example, to bring them to Costa Rica and involve them in community projects there: One examined what could be done to reduce yearly water shortages, another examined banana plantations, and another used a UAV to collect high resolution imagery for the coastal area near Bahia Ballena.<\/p>\n

Another thing I admire is that Amy doesn\u2019t just study a topic\u2014she acts upon the knowledge that she gains.\u00a0 For example, as part of the\u00a0Semilla de Ballena<\/a>\u00a0(Seeds of Ballena) project, she and community members germinated and planted 1,000 manglillo, sota caballo, and cedro maria trees to combat beach and soil erosion.\u00a0 In another example, Amy doesn\u2019t just say, \u201cSchools are important to the region\u2019s future,\u201d and leave it at that\u2014she\u00a0actively works with<\/em>\u00a0educators to identify their needs and empower them in the use of GIS, GPS, and remote sensing technologies.\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, she practices what she preaches.\u00a0 She is patient\u2014whether with trees or with people\u2014she realizes that thoughtful efforts focused on important issues will reap long-term benefits.<\/p>\n

Amy is also a good listener.\u00a0 You don\u2019t move to another country and work on successful projects with local people by blazing forward with your own agenda; you do it through careful listening to their needs, building trust, and working toward common goals.<\/p>\n

I have taught with Amy for many years as part of the\u00a0Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS (T3G)<\/a>\u00a0program at Esri, a professional development opportunity that resulted in an online community and a face-to-face intensive GIS-focused institute.\u00a0 I have been consistently impressed with Amy\u2019s focus on doing everything to the highest standards of quality, down to the smallest detail of instruction or component of the lesson.<\/p>\n

After listening to Amy\u2019s keynote speech at a recent Applied Geography Conference, I could not help but think that her efforts have always been exactly that\u2013applied.\u00a0 She applies what she knows to teacher training, to teaching students, and to helping people and communities achieve their potential.<\/p>\n

Amy has been involved with many projects involving geography over the years, but the one she is perhaps proudest of is a Syracuse Community Geography project with which she was involved while studying for her master\u2019s degree.\u00a0 The project applied GIS to social issues such as food security and access to resources for senior citizens. It was an expansion of how GIS and geography could help city organizations and institutions better understand their clients, their clients\u2019 needs, and how to best allocate their resources.<\/p>\n

Amy says she is also proud of what she is currently doing with Geoporter and teaching community residents to apply the technology to their own concerns. \u201cPerhaps it\u2019s hard to say I am most proud of this project, because to me it is still ongoing. It\u2019s not complete. Maybe in time I will see it not as my daily work, but as something to be extremely proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given Amy\u2019s leadership, I asked her what she thinks is the most important thing we, the geography community, need to work on.\u00a0 Amy responded, \u201cI think we should continue to look at social and human dynamics related to environmental changes; for example, applying geography to human health, including infectious disease, or just for a better understanding of individuals\u2019 medical histories.\u00a0 How do changing climates impact disease patterns and incidence?\u00a0 Furthermore, how does climate impact the political sphere or the refugee crisis, and how does it alter access to food and water resources?\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy\u2019s advice to new geographers?\u00a0 \u201cGeography is all around us. Find what interests you and apply your skills to helping better understand that topic. Keep trying and you\u00a0will\u00a0<\/strong>be a geographer. There are so many of us in the world, and when you do meet them, you will find you have so much in common.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy believes in dreaming big and making those dreams a reality.\u00a0 As she said in\u00a0an article for the Ohio Wesleyan University news<\/a>, \u201cIf you would have told me when I was in college that I\u2019d be living in the tropics and working, I would have said you\u2019re joking, there is no way…Now I know that anything\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about Amy Work\u2019s projects, see the\u00a0Geoporter nonprofit organization\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0webpage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy Work’s zeal for making a positive difference in our world through geography and geotechnologies led her to Costa Rica, where she has been working closely with students, community leaders, and conservation organizations for the past few years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainability.owu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}