Computer Models for Social Change

Our recently minted PhD student, Peter Johnson, is joining us as a postdoc on the project: Web 2.0 for land use decision making in the regions of Quebec.

We have just received a 2-year grant to develop geoweb tools to assist in enhancing discussions among residents--farmers, urban dwellers, and members of government institutions at varying levels.

The abstract follows:

La MRC <<municipalités régionales de comté>> d’Acton a amorcé, il y a quelques mois, une réflexion sur l’avenir de son territoire agricole et travaille actuellement sur une stratégie de développement et d’occupation dynamique de son territoire agricole. Cette initiative s’insère dans la vision gouvernementale de «redéveloppement» des territoires agricoles (suite au dépôt des rapports Pronovost et Ouimet), la MRC d’Acton agissant ainsi comme zone pilote.

The second of two articles from our former Masters student (now Dr. to give you an indication of how slow the academic publishing world can be), Sonja Klinsky, has finally been published.

Sonja Klinsky;  Renée Sieber; Thom Meredith. 2010. Connecting Local to Global: Geographic Information Systems and Ecological Footprints as Tools for Sustainability The Professional Geographer, 62 (1): 84 - 102

Congratulations, Dr. Peter Allan Johnson, who successfully defended his dissertation, Visioning Local Futures: Agent based modeling as a tourism planning support system.

Come hear the talks and do the geocaching at GIS Day at McGill, November 18, 2009.

10:30-11:30: Talks on how we use GIS

1:30 onward: Geo-caching - around the city and campus! Students will be able to participate in a geo-caching race with GPS units, the winning team will be granted a cash prize (in addition to team fund raising efforts) to be donated to charity. This event will be followed up with refreshments and discussion.