Gaithersburg, MD (November 9, 2022)  The City of Gaithersburg celebrates GIS Day and Geography Awareness Week in November with discussions and activities designed to promote geography knowledge and showcase Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and how they impact everyday life.

With more than 700 layers of information in its database, the City’s GIS serves as an important tool for analysis and strategic decision making. The GIS database helps inform staff and elected officials about such things as the availability of affordable housing, impervious surface coverage, most effective snow plow routes, access to social services, and much more.

With a proclamation at their meeting on November 7, the Mayor and City Council officially proclaimed November 16 as GIS Day and November 14 to 18 as Geography Awareness Week in the City of Gaithersburg. At the meeting, staff presented on the City’s field mapping capabilities and its companion dashboards. View the meeting presentation here.

GIS activities include:

Drop-In Weekend Activity

Celebrate GIS and Maps on Saturday and Sunday, November 12 and 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Gaithersburg Community Museum. Learn more about Geographic Information Systems, how GIS applies to our daily lives, and the connection between GIS and the International Latitude Observatory with free hands-on activities.

Gaithersburg Scavenger Hunt

Explore Gaithersburg using longitude and latitude. The Gaithersburg Community Museum will share the coordinates for a different site each day November 14 through 18. Post an image of the site (selfies welcome) to be entered to win a Gaithersburg swag bag and bragging rights. You are allowed one entry for each site you post. Tag @GaithersburgCommunityMuseum on Facebook, use #GburgMuseum on Instagram, or e-mail your images to [email protected] by November 20. Learn more here.

Museum After Hours: Visualizing Injustice – Early NAACP Cartographers And Racial Inequality in America

Historian John Hessler, with the Library of Congress, will discuss the use of cartography in highlighting racial injustice in America on Wednesday, November 16 at 7 p.m. at the Gaithersburg Community Museum. Cartography has long been used to highlight racial and economic issues and make complex issues more understandable to the general public. An important moment in the use of cartography came together in the early 1900s when the NAACP employed Black intellectuals to use demographic data to create a series of maps that highlighted racial inequity in the United States. Registration is required. Suitable for ages 14 and older. Learn more and register here.

GIS School Outreach

City staff take GIS on the road on Monday, November 21, when they visit Gaithersburg Elementary School (closed event for students only). Students will learn about maps and participate in mapping activities to learn where our Thanksgiving meals come from.

For more information on these programs and other GIS initiatives, please visit the City website at www.gaithersburgmd.gov, call 301-258-6325, or e-mail [email protected].