Discussion: How to expose a GIS class to orienteering and mapping?

I am going to have the chance to talk to a college GIS class, for about 1/2 hour, about orienteering, how we make maps, and how we use them. I am hoping to use this talk to recruit a couple students to help map the campus and the adjacent ~150 acres of woods, eventually looking to hold a local meet there.

What would you say and do? I was thinking to show a couple videos, perhaps the infamous O.MOV and then one of ken's actual o-videos with the headcam and map display (like this: http://vimeo.com/19472531 )

I know some people don't like O.MOV. I guess its a bit dated in its production style but it at least shows ~college age people doing this and enjoying it and does explain the sport. I think its a bit too long -- about 5 minutes would be ideal. I did search around AP for other promo videos. I saw links to the "german" video and the "polish" video that are both just a few minutes long, have no speech or explanation at all, and have such dramatic music it makes orienteering look like sieging Helm's Deep... a bit over the top.

Thoughts?

I've brought up orienteering maps as examples in a few GIS classes I've taken and I'd say that the maps are often enough all by themselves to pique interest for GIS people. They already love maps. The mechanics of the sport itself are interesting to a smaller subset. A video like the one Jagge posted is good, because it shows how the map relates to the terrain, which I think is the really interesting part to map nerds.

http://stoltzen.no/okart/export_kml.php?id=1469&fo...
http://jonkopingsok.se/kartarkiv/export_kml.php?id...

One could show o map overlay like the ones above with Google Earth. Just find a nice map, open enough, steep enough (to make 3D visualization work), with good imagery and DEM in GE. Just show it a bit and slide the opacity slider to switch between imagery and O map to show how the map relates to the terrain. And a short video like the one I posted will show what the actual sport is like as "street view".

If they are geography students taking a GIS course, you'll probably get a decent amount of interest, but if it is a GIS program then pretty much everyone will want to do it. :) If there is some spatial analysis that could be done to the map they build there might be the opportunity to facilitate a project from it (if that is required in the course/program). Sounds fun, I'd have loved this as a GIS student. The best thing about the field is it is the endless variety of interests it can align with.

When I taught GIS labs at Western Mich Univ I took a very similar approach to what you're doing and we had some good results, so I think you will too. I think the video is great for the same reasons Cristina mentioned, but any of the good ones that show map and athleticism can be great. I also recommend reaching out to your school's geography club and/or Gamma Theta Upsilon chapter if you have one. We did this and GTU was instrumental in helping with our campus event. I also made a campus map and held a race on campus and some of the GTU students helped with the fieldwork.. And of course they all helped publicize. Your geography dept can get involved too. Some of our faculty offered students extra credit to go to the O race, and the department helped publicize and signed off for race land use on campus. Of course this depends on the specifc dept as I've had later attempts at another Univeristy with much less success, but always worth trying. good luck with it!

Slightly related, a uni class asked for an urban rogaine map for an exercise. I guess they were studying the travelling salesman problem. Must follow them up.

I've got some o' videos on runbosco.com that offer narration to explain what's going on, comparing map to video footage, etc. My Salmon La Sac video would be the best example I have.

Thanks everybody for the advice. I'd thought I'd update with what I wound up doing.

I showed Jagge's recommended video of the WOC urban sprint, and then another similar one from WOC middle in the forest. I like both of these a lot since they show how fast they move along with the map and GPS trace simultaneously. One student even said "They're not even looking at the map!!" "Well, they are... but they're just that good you can barely tell they are!"

I then showed one of PG's maps with route from the 2012 Billygoat at Moreau Lake State Park and talked about what's on the maps and why we need such detailed maps (etc, etc). I teach at Skidmore College which is about 10 miles south of Moreau, so about half of the class had been there. They were definitely impressed by the map (I handed around my own printed copy, too.)

Then I talked briefly about how we make georeferenced maps and still need to do fieldwork. They seemed pretty interested and a couple people definitely spoke up and said it 'sounded like fun' so lastly I plugged EMPO and our last meet of the season!

No answer from the uni class. Maybe they've all graduated and become travelling salespersons. (Q: are there such jobs any more? You know, like "The Music Man"...)