GIS day was first created in 1999 by the spatial software company ESRI, to celebrate geospatial technology, capabilities, and look forward to a future where new geospatial tools could be used to solve problems. Though GIS day is typically celebrated in the Fall (November 16th) the spirit of GIS day is effectively any day where you look to geospatial information or technology to make life easier.
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| A page from the ESRI website on GIS day, and how to get involved. |
For my GIS day event, I decided to treat my coworkers to a map-making workshop, and show off some of the ways GIS could be used to make our recreational diving more fun. We often have an issue with our favorite dive sites in that we know their layout very well, but struggle to communicate where exactly we want to explore if we have a loose dive plan. I let my coworkers know in honor of GIS day I would make some maps of our two main dive sites for the upcoming weekend. In my living room after work we brainstormed what features we wanted on the maps, and I used NOAA bathymetric data as my base to show depth contours. Once we agreed on which landmarks to show and the map extents, we "assigned" distinct landmark symbol sketches to the most artistic person, and imported those sketches as jpgs into ArcPro symbology. I had the two maps printed onto waterproof paper, and attached them to pvc slate so we could carry them with us during the dive.
Overall my event was very informal, but it was nice to spend some dedicated time using GIS for fun instead of strictly for work. I think my coworkers and friends got a good appreciation for the abilities of GIS, since usually only very popular dive sites have existing maps, and those commercial maps tend to be expensive.
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