Maps for everyone!

The Community Geography Lab creates a collaborative space for using maps to talk through social and environmental challenges. I’m working to establish this as a community space as well as a point of interdisciplinary connections on campus. In 2026, the lab hosted several visits from social studies education classes, an LGBTQ Studies methods class, and a fourth-grade class studying wetlands and topographic maps. A Child Development Center class came to learn about my LEGO City before building one of their own. I worked with Not Your Mother’s Quilting Bee to create a community meeting spot at the Lab. Map Librarian Michael Hawkins and I also hosted GIS Day at the Lab, creating a space to share maps and hosting a map-a-thon where participants could georeferenced historic maps of Portage County. These now-accessible maps are now available on the University Libraries’ website.