Recipients: 2008 ESRI Education User Conference (EdUC) Scholarship Program

Tele Atlas,a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, and ESRI, the world’s leading geographic information systems (GIS) software company, today named the recipients of the 2008 ESRI Education User Conference (EdUC) Scholarship Program. For the sixth year in a row, Tele Atlas and ESRI have teamed up to provide five educators from the United States with a trip to the annual event, which includes travel costs and complimentary admission to the conference, to be held in San Diego, California, August 2–5, 2008.

EdUC is designed to help educators deliver the latest technological advancements to students by teaching attendees everything they need to know to start or grow geographic information system (GIS) activities and programs. As geographic technology increasingly becomes part of schools’ curriculum, this year’s conference is designed to help attendees explore the power of spatial thinking. The educators selected as 2008 scholarship recipients span all levels of education from grade school to university and include:

* Megan Caudill of Wilkesboro, North Carolina, a teacher in a rural community who wants her students to learn from and have fun with GIS;

* Robert Jones of Hannibal, New York, an educator who is developing a K-12 geospatial curriculum;

* Rakesh Malhotra of Durham, North Carolina, an instructor who teaches GIS both in the classroom and in workshops at North Carolina Central University;

* Cynthia May of Ashland, Wisconsin, a college professor at Northland College who teaches all GIS-related courses and is training a research specialist to use ArcGIS; and

* G. Salim Mohammed of Honolulu, Hawaii, an educator who heads the library effort to expand geospatial services at the University of Hawaii.

These EdUC Scholarship Program recipients are each involved in developing GIS courses, integrating GIS into a variety of curriculum and projects, and helping students and teachers experience the insight that GIS brings to the educational setting.

For more information about the ESRI EdUC, visit www.esri.com/educ.