Month: August 2014

Technology has been increasing its role in how people conceptualize and move through space. With applications such as Google Maps becoming increasingly common for daily living-people are changing the way they think about and interact with the world around them. Through the next year I will be diving into this conversation feet first and, through the SIFP, will explore ways that cartographers and geographers can shift their methodologies to encompass people of all socioeconomic statuses.

If you haven’t thought much about maps before- check out this video where Hank Green shares some reasons why maps and spatial thinking deserve some special attention.

My name is Amber Boll and I will be working as a Student Innovation Fellow for the 2014-2015 academic year. I just returned to Atlanta after spending my summer in Washington DC interning at National Geographic where I worked with FieldScope and GIS in the Education Programs Division. I am pursuing an M.S. in Geosciences (Geography concentration) at GSU where I am researching how the advancing digital age impacts the way people engage with maps. More specifically, this fall I will interact with groups of differing incomes and digital connectivity to observe the ways they read and interpret different representations of the same map. I received my undergraduate degree in geography from the University of North Dakota, where I studied community development and GIS. It was during this time that I began to understand the immense power that maps can wield, especially over disenfranchised groups. This awareness serves as the cornerstone for my continually intensifying  interest in community based mapping. My goal is to establish a career which empowers individuals, communities, and organizations through collaborative cartography. Extending my interest for maps into my spare time, I work as a freelance cartographer. I’ve made maps for purposes ranging from historical tourism plaques and books to political campaigns.  Additional Interests: east-coast swing dancing, scrapbooking, road trips

My fellow interns and I who spent the summer working at National Geographic.

In the original library of National Geographic