The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada along with the Audubon Society are also sponsors of the Great Backyard Bird Count which starts in February and is free for participants. Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a list of other citizen science projects that people might be interested in doing such as urban bird count, pigeon count, and migratory birds. Bird Studies Canada has citizen science projects such as The Christmas Bird Count, Canadian Migration Monitoring Network, and the nocturnal owl survey. I think these would be fantastic school, family, or even team-building exercises that involve geospatial data and the local community.

We hope to have an ad up on the site soon that will highlight the 10% discount you can get using our coupon code veryspatial on the ODT Maps order summary page. However, in the short term they would like you to know that if you sign up for the ODT Maps newsletter you will get an exclusive newsletter subscriber discount in the November 21 issue of the ODT Maps newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter head over to http://odtmaps.com/ and select Get E-Updates or follow this direct link. The newsletter discount will save you 30% Nov 23-28…ah Black Friday/CyberMonday sales.

If haven’t visited the ODT Maps site before take a minute to check it out. They have everything from maps to inflatable globes to magnets and stickers. They also have a selection of gift suggestions which includes a Hugg-a-Planet skin for those do-it-yourselfers who want to make the world themselves…and then hugg it (our Hugg-a-Planet still holds a place of honor). But perhaps most awesome of all is the large collection of south oriented maps and the EarthBall which has NITEGLOW CITIES! I am telling you now the the EarthBall may very well be the grand prize for our 6.5 year anniversary contest coming up in January…which means I need to go register for the newsletter so that we can afford to give one away (with the help of the coupon).

Ladies and gents, we are firmly into Geography Awareness Week 2011 (#gaw2011) and events they are a-happenin’ from your local classrooms to the social media circuses. If you haven’t checked out the usual suspects you should head over (in no particular order) to:

Remember, this year’s theme is “the adventure in your community” so go out and share, create, or take part in a Geography adventure to spread the word!

(this is part 1 of 3)
Part 2
Part 3

As Torsten says in episode 107, I hope he doesn’t upset too many of his German speaking listeners in his switch to English, but I am very happy that he has opened the podcast to those of us who only know a handful of words in German. Be sure to check out GEOGRAFREE Front Line and become a US Frontliner