Lazy days of summer? Not so for Green Map projects. All of us in the network and at the global HQ can see that this is prime time and are working hard locally, already in the run up to the UN Climate conference, COP 26, and the NGO-oriented Fringe COP 26 that will take place this fall. Let’s start there.
Our director was invited to the climate-themed TED Countdown conference in Edinburgh in mid-October! This set in motion a plan to stay in Scotland for the COP and work with local Green Map projects and the many participants who will be in and near Glasgow in early November! We’ll share plans and our public events that are live, hybrid and online as it gets closer. Special thanks to Ms. Clinch of Dunoon's Tacit Design and Mr. Lovelock of Glasgow Eco Trust where the Green Map is already underway here, using OGM2, our cool new mapping platform and its campaign feature to engage people in creating it!
Want to help? Your contributions on July 14 of $100 - $1000 will be matched by GlobalGiving and will be dedicated to our work in Scotland this fall. Donate as soon as possible at 9 ET while matching funds last and give Green Map a big boost!
Ms. Clinch also took part in our recent presentation at Living Knowledge 9, which illuminated ways that the United Nations 2030 Global Goals - the SDGs - are used together with Green Map Icons to raise visibility at the local level. Associate Professor Murayama and students at Azabu University in Japan made a terrific 8 minute video on the topic which you can see at bit.ly/SDG-GM-Azabu or watch the full 2 hours at bit.ly/SDG-GM21
Our Recovery Icons were the subject of a talk at C2M2, the Cities, Covid, Mitigation and Mapping Symposium hosted by American Association of Geographers and Harvard University in June - find links to each day of this event as well as our most recent OGM2 Demo (with a sneak peek at the App in development!!) on our Blog.
There are now 60 Open Green Maps on our new platform! Let’s call out one project, GreenErasmus, a student-led multi-campus project focused on students having the best, most sustainable possible experience during their semester abroad in Remagen Germany, Tbilisi Georgia, Baku Azerbaijan, Campina Grande Brazil and Pondicherry India. Congratulations to all involved!
Hadera Israel’s spring project was also successful, yielding maps that shared 4th graders’ perspectives and community improvement ideas, several of which will be funded to move forward. Watch this space in 2022, when, according to the project leader, Ms. Azmon, the project will be extended and continued!
Our thanks to everyone who helps make the world go round with their Green Map projects, and to you, for supporting this ongoing work! Our best wishes for a healthy and green season.
Hello friends of Green Map System!
With your help, we’re having an amazing spring, with locally led Green Map projects popping up all over the world.
Today, we are inviting you to see what’s new at our home base, New York City, where we are gearing up for the Climate Action matching week at GlobalGiving - yes, our NYC project is taking part, and this means your donations of up to $100 are 100% matched next week, from Monday through Friday (April 19th - 23rd) - please pitch in!
Recently, our NYC projects include both mapping and “place making” (which to us means creating green healthy places that we can add to the Green Map). We alternate the two in this new project report that features our local climate action work and partnerships.
NYC is a testing ground for the global Green Map network and many of our adaptable engagement and mapping tools were tested here first. This Saturday, you can help us pilot the new OGM2 Campaign tool - It’s a quick way to engage lots of people in local mapping projects! From noon to three in East River Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, find us near the Fireboat House (just south of Delancey street at riverside), along with several local groups (here is the schedule).
Our work reaches new people all the time. Just this week, our director had the honor of being the first speaker in the International Society of Participatory Mapping’s new Storylines series - follow @ISPMapping on Twitter for updates on the series and watch the recording here.
More people are using OGM2, our new mapping platform, all the time. Come check out a demo and discussion with its open source developers from the GIS Collective and guest Green Mapmakers on Saturday April 17, 2021 10:00 AM EDT (your time zone). It's a one-hour event, please register here, and consider making a Green Map for your community!
It’s been a year like no other, and we thank you for your support of our work worldwide and in NYC. Our best wishes for your good health - have a great, green Earth Day and Climate Action Week, too!
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Tomorrow is Open Data Day at Green Map! It’s actually being celebrated across our city and worldwide - come join our presentation of our awesome mapping platform, OGM2, with speakers from the development team and the exemplary FEEDJeffCo Green Map (begun in 2020, this map has pivoted from celebrating food grown locally around Port Townsend to securing access to healthy food for all in Washington State’s Jefferson County).
OGM2 is becoming more flexible and useful with easy to create mapping campaigns and new storytelling features like sound files. It’s so versatile that 4th graders in Hadera Israel are getting started now as part of their "My City" curriculum. At Green Map, we welcome more young mapmakers guided by educators where the mapping can combine “combine 21st century skills and sustainability in a city that wants to be green.”
RSVP to Tuesday’s 1pm ET Open Day Day talk at bit.ly/OGM2ODW
(Check ‘every time zone’ and if you read this message too late, no worries, we will add the recording to OGM2’s story, with demo recordings, upcoming events and the growing list of OGM2 in beta features.
Open continues: As part of her interest in community wellbeing, our director is part of an exciting panel on open air quality data on Thursday at 11 AM, too (details at bit.ly/AQ21ODW).
It’s very moving to see progress through community mapping on the ground - with or without tech platforms. Thank you again for your support, which helps every Green Map project!
Cuba’s Green Map project is celebrating 20 years with a newly released video, find it on our YouTube channel. Crafted with great archival footage and reflections over the last two years, these Green Mapmakers, based at the Centro Felix Varela since inception, share the secret sauce that keeps this nation-wide project relevant and a source of continuous progress. Their Covid maps (best seen at Red de Mapa Verde and the organizational page on Facebook, along with regenerative efforts stemming from findings on the maps) have helped illuminate and address a wide range of vulnerabilities. We’re so glad to share they are planning to digitize the remarkable Atlas of paper maps amassed over the years on OGM2! Yes! Our thanks to all involved in this remarkable effort and to those contributing "back end" translations to make it easier to chart in any language on OGM2.
Liana, the long time director of the Cuban Green Map project is a member of the International Green Mapmakers Advisory group, which met yesterday and refreshed goals and projects for the year ahead. We’ll be sharing more of this on our next newsletter.
Upcoming: Watch our social media for the date and link to our director's talk at the International Society of Participatory Mapping in mid-April, too.
Our best wishes for the Equinox and a healthy, green season ahead!
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2020, what a year! Despite it all new mapping projects keep popping up, thanks to your help! Please pitch in on Giving Tuesday and incentivize our work.
Take for example, the Dunoon Postcard Trail, designed to link the local heritage of this Scottish seaside town to the sustainable community development of this place. Explored onsite or online, this is created by Ms. Clinch of Tacit Design, who has also partnered with Creative Carbon Scotland on this program on community mapping for environmental empowerment, introducing Green Mapmaking to so many new people.
Ms. Clinch’s Green Map was made on OGM2, our mapping platform in development by the GIS Collective. There’s now about 25 maps to explore at http://new.OpenGreenMap.org. Check out the list of features, some of which grew out of our First Fridays zooms with the Berlin-based developers and the global mapmakers. Thanks to your support, OGM2 will soon emerge from ‘beta’ and continue to grow in usefulness and versatility. This ‘open source’ platform has huge potential to be used in other applications, too!
You support also helps us create and share education resources. Check out the important work being done in as a university-high school collaboration at “Green Map as a service-learning experience in a coastal community of Yucatan, Mexico”. Here, the marine aquatecture students used Google MyMap with Green Map Icons, plus three new symbols they created to point out turtle habitats, street dogs and local seafood. Our thanks to project leaders Ms. Leija, Ms. Koh and Ms. Ávila for their report on our blog, too.
We love working with classes, and nowadays, it’s so easy to show up and support innovative uses of mapping and location-based technologies. A highlight was working with Los Angeles’ OTIS College of Art & Design on their entry for PANDO Days, a cool new app concept that mixed our icons, the UN SDGs and symbols already in use in LA County. Our work with the University of Victoria continues, as well, and now we are drawing OGM2 and the GIS Collective into the “Map Shop” process.
All these experiences played a role in our 25th year exhibit “How Green Is My City’ at MoRUS Museum in New York. The show continues and possibly, more outdoor events will pop up - watch for updates and follow us on Instagram at green.map, too!
Our best wishes to all! Stay healthy and thank you for your support this Giving Tuesday (or anytime!)
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As promised, we are back to share news with you about the Green Map exhibit, How Green Is My City? The show opened on September 6th and will remain on view for the rest of 2020 at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, 155 Avenue C in Manhattan’s East Village. MoRUS Museum is open Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sundays from 11AM - 7PM. Check online at GreenMap.org/2020exhibit and morusnyc.org for updates culminating in a December closing event.
Please! Donate $10-$50 (until Midnight Friday) for a 50% Match!
Find this small museum at the intersection of history and activism in the community where Green Map has been based for 25 years. Accordingly, our show is mostly about our own past accomplishments, locally and globally. We also include current projects that your donations have helped to support, such as our mapping platform in development, which will be featured in online demos and this neighborhood event:
In person: Put your Spot on the Green Map! Saturday, September 19, 5-7pm
Celebrate North American Day of Sustainable Communities by putting your favorite green sites on the map. Share your knowledge about places, projects and practices and find out about the OGM2 mapping platform at this outdoor event. It’s on the plaza at Grace Exhibition Space at 182 Avenue C, where the “Microbes to Metropolis” exhibit by MoS MoBS LoBS Lab is also on view.
Online: OGM2 Demonstration Discussion! Join us on first Fridays, October 2, November 6 and December 4 at 2PM ET.
Join us from where you stand and find out about using Open Green Map 2, the new mapping platform (now in Beta) developed for us by the Berlin-based GIS Collective. Get the Zoom link at GreenMap.org/2020exhibit.
We’ve also organized tours, with more to come later this fall:
Climate Week NYC Exhibit Tour Friday, September 25th, 6pm
This event is part of Climate Week NYC 2020. Beginning at MoRUS Museum, this outdoor - indoor tour will provide unique insight and context to the Green Map movement. Please RSVP here.
Green Map Cycling Tour Saturday October 17th, 3pm (rain date 10/18)
This Green Map bike tour will highlight green infrastructure. We’ll track underwater streams and traverse the original NYC shore line into East River Park, which is slated for phased demolition beginning this fall. Guest speaker Ms. Ip from EastRiverParkAction.org as well as maps from the past (and for the future) will help us gain perspective on current resiliency challenges and movements. Limited to 8 riders - with distancing & masks. RSVP to apple@greenmap.org
MoRUS has this family-friendly event planned:
East Village Community Garden Passport - Sunday, Sept 20th 4pm
Stop in for your own copy of the Passport, which maps out a variety of sustainable gardens located in the East Village. Once you have gathered the stamps from all the gardens return the full passport to the museum and receive a prize!
There is much more coming up this season - see GreenMap.org/2020exhibit
We are so grateful for your support, which is matched all week - donate $10 to $50 and we’ll receive 50% more from September 14th to 18th, until Midnight Friday, thanks to GlobalGiving.
Thank you for your generosity and for your support of urban sustainability and healthier communities through Green Mapping!
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