My youngest daughter, who insists that she is no longer a baby, made up her very own song about COVID-19. It is shared below for your listening pleasure. Even the youngest among us are aware of COVID-19. That to me signifies the impact that has had on life as we knew it.
For the past few months all that we have been hearing about is the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions it has placed on us all. Now with many borders being closed, and travel restricted to many destinations, I find myself thinking about the places I have been around the world. My most memorable places turns out to be where I have been, in relation to my learning about geospatial technologies. Listed below are my 7 most memorable places and an indication of the “GISsy” things I learnt when I visited.
- Dehradun, India – Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing
- A Coruna, Spain – QGIS software training
- Chaing Mai, Thailand – Emergency Response
- Stanley, Falkland Islands – Spatial Data Management
- Merida, Mexico – Marine Spatial Planning
- Valetta, Malta – Coastal Resource Management
- Belmopan, Belize – Census Mapping
This trip down memory lane convinced me to create a simple map to document these memorable places. Shown below is the dynamic map I created. You can explore this map by zooming, panning and clicking on my location markers. I added images of each location that remains been etched in my mind from my visit.
Would you like to create your own COVID-19 travel blues map? Here’s how you can in 10 easy steps:
- Log in to your Google account
- Go to Google My Maps: https://www.google.com/mymaps
- In the welcome pop-up, select Create a new map
- Click the text Untitled map to edit the map title and description.
- Type your favorite location in the search box. The map will be panned to that location
- Click “+ add to map“
- You then have the options to style, edit or add an image to tat marker if you so desire using the tools in the pop-up.
- You have the option of changing your base image. Try satellite.
- You can share your completed map with others by clicking the Share button in the map menu
- Under “Add people” at the bottom of the menu, type in the e-mail addresses of the people you’d like to share your map with directly, or choose from your contacts. You can select whether the people you invite can edit the map or just view it.
Congratulations on creating and sharing your very own map!
Lavern Rogers-Ryan is a geospatial consultant specialising in disaster risk management and recovery. She is currently head of the GIS Centre within the Government of Montserrat. Learn more about geospatial services in disasters at www.lavernrogersryan.com.
