Spring into GIS with these upcoming events

Hi GIS Enthusiasts,

Daylight Saving Time is just around the corner. As you spring ahead, consider attending fun and exciting GIS and remote sensing events.  Some are coming up soon, so make sure to get them on your calendar, or you might miss out!

1. IowaView Earth Observation Seminar – Remote Sensing of Vegetation: Am I Green Enough? Green Reports for monitoring vegetation by Dana Peterson – March 10 at 12 PM (virtual event) – contact Amy Logan for the link.

Dr. Dana Peterson, director of KansasView and senior research associate with Kansas Applied Remote Sensing, a program of the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research at The University of Kansas, will present on the Green Report and the Sentinel Green Report. The Green Reports use remotely sensed imagery to track vegetation greenness over time at different resolutions. The classic Green Report uses 1km imagery, and the Sentinel Green Report uses 10m imagery. The Green Report web app produces a series of maps; greenness, NDVI compared to the previous time period, NDVI compared to last year at that time, NDVI compared to the last time the same crop was grown, and NDVI compared to an average of all years, to help growers and land managers evaluate how vegetation changes across crops and rotations. 

2. Interested in learning more about people doing GIS and Remote Sensing research and outreach?  Check out the Spatial Signals podcast.  Spatial Signals is a podcast about remote sensing, GIS, and geospatial technologies – but, more importantly, it’s about the people who use and apply them. The podcast aims to help listeners learn more about the cool people and projects in the AmericaView network.
   
   Amy Logan was recently featured with three AmericaView colleagues in an episode about a collaborative project we’re working on this year. The episode, “Remote Sensing and K-12 Education: The Squared Circle, Round Three,” dropped on Feb. 16. Take a listen and reach out if you would like to get more involved with IowaView.

3. Upcoming, in-person, GIS-related workshops at Parks Library (Iowa State) – University Library Workshop Calendar
   1. March 12 – 1:00pm – 2:30pm – Introduction to QGIS – Have you ever wanted to make a map to add context to your project, but didn’t know where to start?  An introduction to QGIS (a free and open-source mapping software) will give participants the skills to begin their map-making journey.  This workshop will introduce participants to the QGIS interface, show them how to create and edit a basic data layer, and make a quick map.
   2. April 9 – 11:00am – 12:15 pm – OpenStreetMap Data Discovery – Have you ever struggled to find data for a GIS project? We will be exploring OpenStreetMap (OSM), a community-contributed, open map of the world, as a possible data source. It is a good and often underutilized source for spatial data.  In this workshop, participants will learn how to download data from OpenStreetMap and import it into GIS software.  We will discuss data validity and ways to improve the OSM map.

4. The ISU GIS Seminar Series is on Mondays at 1:10 pm throughout the spring, featuring a variety of GIS professionals and students sharing their research and expertise: 2026 GIS Seminar Series Details
   1. March 9 – (online) Geospatial Analysis for Urban Environmental Sustainability Research – Aslı Göçmen, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin – Madison
   2. March 30 – (online) Unequally Capitalized Urban Heat Penalty in the Philadelphia Housing Market – Meen Wook Jung, Ph.D. Candidate, The Ohio State University
   3. April 6 – (online) Mapping Community Capital: Using FOSS and Open Data to Reveal Local Gaps in Rural Access and Opportunity – Christopher J. Seeger, Morrill Professor and Extension Specialist , Iowa State University

5. ISU GIS Extension Training: Essentials of ArcGIS Pro: Two-Day Course
   This two-day course will explore the new, easy-to-use features in Esri’s ArcGIS Pro software suite. ArcGIS Pro is an all-in-one solution for editing, visualizing, querying, analyzing, and managing maps and spatial data. This course is intended for both new and experienced users of geographic information systems. Experience using Windows-based applications is highly recommended.

April 2-3, 2026 – Registration Link!
June 10-11, 2026 – Registration Link!
August 20-21, 2026 – Registration Link!
November 12-13, 2026 – Registration Link!

6. Mid America GIS Consortium (MAGIC) Symposium – April 14-16, 2026 – Omaha, Nebraska – Event Details
   
7. Iowa Technology and Geospatial (ITAG) Conference – June 2-5, 2026 – Altoona, Iowa – Event Details

Thank you for reading.  We hope to see you at some of these exciting events. Reach out if you have any questions or would like additional information.