In 2010 we made a very popular Green Map for a major park in Baltimore, the Druid Hill Park Green Map. So many people admired it, but never went to the park that I was determined to make an activity-oriented passport to encourage full exploration of the park's resources. Last summer I used the Kickstarter crowd-sourced funding platform to raise the major chunk of money needed. And just 2 weeks ago, on April 19, we launched the Passport at a party that also kicked off Baltimore's 10th Annual Green Week.

The major themes of Nature, History, Exercise and Culture delineate activities in four distinct regions of the park. The icons and location on the map are referenced on each page , and colorful icon sticker "stamps" match each activity. We also emphasized volunteer opportunities and are using the stickers as a way to draw people inside the Conservatory, now celebrating its 125th anniversary. Another way we will know it is successful is if we attract more people to join the park's "Friends of..." advocacy organization.read more »

Every so often we manage to publish a newsletter; Here's a link to the latest one: http://tinyurl.com/BGM-news-June2012

Reminder to international community - I still hope to create some national/international exchange among school children. Get in touch if you want to get involved.
Thanks!
Janet

Ever since we made the Druid Hill Park Green Map, I've been wanting to design a passport/activity to go along with it. Tonight I put the project up on Kickstarter, a crowd sourced funding platform. We have 50 days to raise the funds. Take a look!

Here is the Kickstarter link to Druid Hill Park Passport

I think it is a great way to utilize the Green Map icons for enticing people out to discover what is around them. I'd love to hear comments from other Green Mappers ... if you can contribute in a small way, that's great, too.read more »

Green Events! Green Organizations! Green Collaborations! Baltimore Green Map is collaborating with Baltimore Green Works to map Baltimore Green Week 2012. (a plethora of "green") As many mapmakers know, it's a great way to capture the geographic dimensions of multiple activities around common themes.

Baltimore Green Map has had maps online via Open Green Map for several years now. Over 60 site nominations have come from map users suggesting other places that should be on the map. And we have attracted some useful and lovely comments about sites mapped. We hope many more people will add relevant comments! Here's a sampling - nostalgic, informative, practical - from the last 45 days:

About "Mother's Garden" in one of our local parks: "My mother, who just passed away at the age of 92, recorded in her memory book of her visits to Mother's Garden. She said there were "roses galore" and it was a favorite place to visit, especially on Sunday afternoons. Sounds like she would have been visiting there when it was still "new"."read more »

Baltimore Green Map was invited to present Green Mapping as an example of "How Communities are Using Mapping Tools" at Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's October, 2011 Unleashing the Power of Local Data conference.

Participants had their laptops open for the interactive element, with time to explore Open Green Map.

We combined information from our own archives, OGM screen grabs and the Green Map-OGM Resources/promote section to put together a presentation that illustrated a diversity of map scales and strategies to collect information.

We also wanted to demonstrate full utilization of the OGM features More info, Comments, Multimedia, Impacts before turning participants loose to browse maps on their own. Those user input features are where "the power" and potential of Green Mapping resides. read more »

Our last map focused on resources in one city watershed and had an inset map of Druid Hill Park, the large central park within that Baltimore watershed. It is a 745-acre park filled with curvilinear drives and distinctly different topography, scenic areas, and activity sites. People tend to know one area but have trouble wrapping their minds around everything the park contains and how to navigate through it. The inset proved so popular that we decided to print a stand-alone map in time for Druid Hill Park's 150th birthday celebration in mid-October. The updated map contains over 65 site entries and uses 17 Green Map icons. And on that map we were able to include a timeline of the park's history and to provide more information about specific resources within the park. We are asking for donations at the map's distribution points both to insure those that pick up the "free" map really want it and to help seed the funding for the next park project, a passport to accompany the map.read more »

Great news from Jessica Ring, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design / Department of Art at Towson University and Green Map collaborator:

“The Student Green Map won a Silver award in the Going Green category of the 40th Annual University & College Designers Association Design Competition. The judges evaluated 52 entries in these categories, awarding 14 awards—2 Gold Awards, 7 Silver Awards and 5 Awards of Excellence. In total, 1,300 print, electronic media, and going green entries, awarding 237 awards in the those categories. A total of 6 Gold Awards, 18 Silver Awards and 213 Awards of Excellence were chosen.”read more »

Global Mapmakers, why do YOU Green Map?

It's been almost ten years since I began collaborating with the Green Map System. Lately several people have asked me why I have been so passionate and persistent about this project, so I've decided to share my reasons here:

1) Promote Access to Resources

I had taken my background in architecture, urban planning and education into a new iteration through an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship to map youth resources in Baltimore. I quickly realized that people were unaware of resources mere blocks from where they lived and had a generally negative impression about city youth. So began my search for effective ways to communicate knowledge about existing resources and about the positive actions young people were taking to improve their neighborhoods. For the past decade I've explored different ways to mobilize the Green Map icons to expand knowledge and to Map the Positives! read more »

Baltimore has a consortium of campuses involved in various collaborative efforts under the Baltimore Collegetown Network. Most local campuses have Sustainability Commissions these days, so we have launched the Baltimore Collegetown Green Map Challenge with a fabulous pilot project at Towson University. Print maps were the focus. The students are eloquent in speaking of the benefits they realized from doing this project in their Graphic Design Studio. Their professor, Jessica Ring, was a wonderful collaborator.read more »