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15 November 2000

Canberra Students to celebrate World GIS Day
15 November 2000

Canberra's Lake Tuggeranong and Canberra College students celebrated World GIS (Geographic Information System) Day today at the Geoscience Australia in Symonston.

Following a request from the Computer Education Group ACT (CEGACT) for some GIS data for students to use, Geoscience Australia agreed to provide the CEGACT with a geological dataset of the ACT.

Dr. Trevor Powell, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Geoscience Australia, officially handed over the Canberra GIS Dataset to CEGACT as part of World GIS Day celebrations.

Following the presentation, students from the two colleges were able to use the dataset immediately in Geoscience Australia's IT training room. They were able to practise loading files, creating views, hot linking, importing attribute data from a file, perform a query and make a shape file from it, and use colours and symbols. Students and staff also had the opportunity to take a tour of the award winning Geoscience Australia building and see GIS Datasets being used by Geoscience Australia scientists.

Geoscience Australia has recently received international recognition for the work it undertook to produce a GIS (Geographic Information System) for Nauru. This GIS will help the people of Nauru achieve a more secure future when they are no longer able to mine the island's phosphate deposits. Geoscience Australia has a reputation as an agency with demonstrated capacity to develop and deliver specialised GIS for resource studies and environmental management.

GIS is a multibillion-dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and is taught in schools, colleges, and universities throughout the world. Professionals in every field are increasingly aware of the advantages of thinking and working geographically.

GIS is used in a wide variety of fields of human endeavour including utilities, transport and navigation, agriculture, earth science, mining, medicine, disaster response and mitigation, law enforcement, libraries, business marketing and sales, environmental management, forestry, government, military, waste management, and property administration.