August-September Green Map Express

Here at Green Map System, we have had a very productive summer. With a fresh crop of innovation growing, we invite you to share in the harvest!

While school has been on break, we gathered up the responses from the educators and youth group leaders who tested our set of Energy and Environment Exploration Modules over the past year. We then refined and finalized these adaptable tools and the educator guide that goes with them for both in and out-of-school activities. Both New York City and Global editions are now available. We invite you to use them with middle and high school students in your community.

Free Resources for Educators!

Thanks to our supporters who believe in the importance of mobilizing the next generation as much as we do, you can use these modules to map street trees and green space, get around car-free, find waste reduction sites and save energy at school. Download the Global version of these modules at GreenMap.org/youth. Find these and two additional modules designed specifically for charting NYC's environment at GreenAppleMap.org/page/modules. Your teens will get a taste of Green Mapmaking and discover great ways to get involved in local greening efforts.

Open Green Map in Phase 2, Open to the Green Map Network

Although we are not announcing the official public launch date quite yet, we have made great strides in the development of the Open Green Map, our interactive mapmaking platform. As Phase 1 was completed on July 31, we invited our global network of Green Mapmakers to start making their own interactive maps. Already 39 diverse maps have been started, from Charleston U.S. to Swansea Wales and Yogyakarta Indonesia - ten countries are represented to date. As we continue to add capacity for the public to post green sites to Open Green Map's World View map and otherwise prepare for the public launch, you can preview the action at OpenGreenMap.org.

Recognition keeps flowing in for the Open Green Map, including our selection for a special award about which we can't go public just yet. What we can say is that this honor will bring our team out to the Bay Area for a week beginning September 9. If you would like to meet us there for a demonstration of this work in progress or to find out more on how you can support our continuing effort, please send email us at info [at] greenmap [dot] org.

Seeking Interns, Volunteers, Supporters (and of course, Mapmakers)!

We always appreciate the fresh energy of interns in our global office! Now, we would like to hear from New York metro area university students in design, computer technology, marketing, business and environmental studies. Please email your resume to info [at] greenmap [dot] org. Potential volunteers are welcome to get in touch with us, too!

This summer, interns joined the Open Green Map tech development team from Finland - Miikka Lammela and Austria - Gottfried Haider (who came to us via CDS International with thanks to Turku University of the Applied Sciences and the Pall Mall Foundation), New York designers Andrew Sass (SVA) and Yoko Ishibashi (Parsons), and on our outreach team, Madeleine Goldfarb (Muhlenberg) and Kathryn Podobinski (Northwestern). Our thanks to each of these wonderful individuals for their many contributions to Green Map's local and global development.

Hearing from our supporters, both new and existing is wonderful, too! Click to donate online or mail a tax-deductible contribution to Green Map System, POB 249, NYC USA 10002. Prospective mapmakers, we invite you to put your community on the Green Map!

We welcome your suggestions and insights, anytime. Your involvement and support means so much to us!

Our best wishes to all for a great green month ahead.