Washington-Lee High School Archives

GIS Day is a day dedicated to showing, teaching, and inspiring others. For the eighth year in a row, Blue Raster hosted students from Washington-Liberty High School and demonstrated real world applications of GIS. Led by teacher Ryan Miller, the students have the chance to learn about geospatial technologies through a program called Geospatial Semester.

The Blue Raster team shared real-world GIS success stories through a round of lightning talk presentations on recent and ongoing projects. Despite the cold November weather, we ventured outside and collected temperature data from around the Arlington area. Then, the students collaborated on an Esri Operations dashboard to visualize the data.

GIS Day Dashboards

We wrapped up our day with a pizza lunch and ice cream from the Penn State creamery. We look forward to next year and a new group of students!

Read more about Blue Raster's past GIS Day activities here.

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On November 16^th, we celebrated GIS Day by inviting GIS students from Washington-Lee High School to visit Blue Raster. Led by teacher, Ryan Miller, Washington-Lee offers several technology classes linked to James Madison University. For the fifth year, Blue Raster has hosted the class, giving students insight into the connection between what they learn in the classroom and the work GIS professionals do in the world today.

The Blue Raster team shared real-world GIS success stories through a round of lightning talk presentations on ongoing projects and then invited the students to use their GIS skills with a fun Collector for ArcGIS challenge. After collecting and mapping data on transportation in their county, students saw the application of GIS in a new meaningful way.

“It’s such a tremendous asset to be able to link my high school GIS students with the professionals at Blue Raster. Blue Raster’s willingness to dedicate time, effort and resources, into a GIS day collaboration, benefits my students as they get to observe incredible GIS work and potential career opportunities. The students and I are so grateful to Mike, Stephen and to the entire Blue Raster team.”

— Ryan Miller, Teacher @APSVirginia and Meteorologist @ABC7NEWS

We wrapped up the day with viewing their data collection in the Operations Dashboard and enjoying some pizza and desserts.

Our Work

GIS Day at Blue Raster

GIS Day Dashboards

Local Students Celebrate GIS Day at Blue Raster