Vote by April 26th, 2010!

Public voting is open for The Bizarre Map Challenge and every vote counts! The Bizarre Map Challenge is a map design competition open to high school, college, and university students in the United States. The goals of this challenge are: to promote spatial thinking; increase awareness of geospatial technology; and inspire curiosity about geographic patterns and map representation in students and the broader public.

The Prizes (wow!)

• First Prize: $5,000
• Second Prize: $1,000
• Third Prize: $600
• and $200 each to the remaining top 10

Your participation through voting helps encourage young map-makers and demonstrates public support for this exciting, fun, and educational competition. Who knows, maybe next year someone you know will compete! Vote for your favorite map now and help spread the word. Voting ends 12:00pm Pacific Time, April 26, 2010.

The Bizarre Map Challenge competition is supported by the National GeoTech Center and San Diego State University.

RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) provides a timeline-based interactive map depicting the U.S.’s historical imports of oil since 1973. Map controls can slide to specific dates and highlight five periods by major oil crises, including history briefs in the sideline. Map units can be displayed in oil or U.S. dollars. Map can also be put on auto-play. This is a well-done interactive map and interesting visualization of the flow of resources over time.

Rocky Mountain Institute is an independent, entrepreneurial nonprofit think-and-do tank™ that drives the efficient and restorative use of resources (from the RMI website).

Thank you for your enthusiastic response to Penn State Public Broadcasting’s new public education initiative—the Geospatial Revolution Project. The conversations and exchange of ideas within the geospatial community have been tremendous and we are eager to work with you on maintaining project momentum. To that end, we wanted to brief you on the latest project developments.

Cutting-Edge Production Model—Based on your feedback, we are announcing an exciting change in our production plans. We realize that time is of the essence. Therefore, we will use the Web to release 8 video episodes—each 7 minutes or so—on an ongoing basis over the lifespan of the project. This new model allows us to accomplish several goals that are important to all of us:
· We will start releasing segments as they are produced—no need to wait for the final production;
· Broader audiences will be reached by engaging people where they are and how they want their media—online and through flexible and more immediate distribution platforms;
· Educational media tools will be available as episodes are released for outreach partners and the public to use;
· And, by releasing videos episodically, we will be able to better reflect emerging trends in geospatial technology.

In keeping with this new model, we are releasing a downloadable version of the Geospatial Revolution Project trailer on our web site today. Go to http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu to download.

Outreach Education—The outreach initiatives around our new production model will focus on digital learning tools for K-12 education and media content that will support work force development, local government and policy applications, civic engagement, and public understanding of this complex issue.

Fundraising—As of today, we are in the fundraising phase for the project. Production will begin as soon as we have reached our funding threshold of $500,000. To produce all of the planned episodes and the culminating one- hour documentary, fundraising will continue throughout the project. However, in order to receive recognition in the credits from the very first episode, we are encouraging funders to come on board early. You can learn more about fundraising and underwriting opportunities by contacting us at ProjectFundingOpportunities@psu.edu.

We will continue to update you on important milestones and developments. With your support, we look forward to an early production start and to sharing this amazing project with all of you.

The Geospatial Revolution Team

Elaine Brzycki, M.Ed.
Project Manager and Funding Relations

Lindsey Faussette, B.A.
Project Associate

Melanie K. Doebler, D.Ed.
Funding Executive