Green Maps for a more sustainable future!

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! 

Links:

• Want to see more about the Advisors, or board and team?
• Between these reports, see upcoming events on Twitter
• Follow us on Instagram, too, at Green.Map!

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!)

Links:

• Fun to make 1 minute video for PBS's American Portrait
• Espatially New York's article on this mapping movement
• LES Open Arts! interview on our hyper-local work