Student interns from Calumet and Houghton High Schools, under the guidance of faculty, staff, and students of the Historical Environments Spatial Analytics Lab and the Keweenaw Time Traveler team recently launched a new WebGIS for the Calumet and Laurium region. 

The map can be found at www.calumetmap.com

The map integrates information collected by the student interns from 2017 and 2018 and integrates it with state, local, and Keweenaw Time Traveler datasets. 

The WebGIS is the beginning of a multi-year partnership between many local organizations including MTU Social Sciences, Western UP Planning and Development Region, Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, Keweenaw National Historical Park, and local municipalities to create a regional GIS for local planning, economic development, heritage management, tourism, and health promotion.

The WebGIS is an output of the NSF-funded Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers, "GRACE- GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education” project.  GRACE is a collaboration between MTU's Historical Environments Spatial Analytics Lab, Eastern Michigan University's Institute for Geospatial Research and Education, and Michigan Virtual University, to bring GIS technologies to Michigan’s high school educators and intensive community-based internship experiences to high school students.  You can read more about the GRACE Project on our website.

Bring your memories! All you need is a short story and some enthusiasm and we will help you do the rest. One of our Time Traveler team members will make an audio recording of you telling your story, and then help you add it to the Keweenaw Time Traveler Explore App (learn more about the Explore App here). You can locate your story on a historic map—maybe at your grandmother's house where she taught you to make her special crust or at your favorite local pasty-maker. You can also include photographs to illustrate your story. Either bring a digital file on a thumb drive or bring the photograph and we can scan it for you (We'll even give you the high resolution digital file to keep!) Plan to spend about 10–20 minutes sharing your Pasty Story. After that, internet users will be able to enjoy your story and leave you feedback. We will also work with the StoryCorps app to share Pasty Stories with a national audience!

This program is a fun--and tasty!—way to #MapYourHistory with the Keweenaw Time Traveler. Can't wait to hear your Pasty Stories!
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Research Associates from the Human Environments Spatial Analytics Lab and the Keweenaw Time Traveler project worked this weekend with Dr. Tim Scarlett (MTU Social Sciences) and others at the Quincy Smelter Works to highlight for MTU Alumni how we use remote sensing and GIS to support the preservation and interpretation of industrial heritage sites.  











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​The research team is using a suite of geospatial technologies—including Ground Penetrating Radar, LiDAR, Photogrammetry, Thermal and spectral imaging, among others. HESAL staff built an web-based Historical GIS (see links below) to document how the property has changed over time, help the scientists examine the remote sensing and geospatial data, enable digital exhibitions and tools for public education, and help the site managers make wise decisions about the vast cultural resources at the site.

​You can read more about our collaboration on the HESA Lab website at historicalgis.com/quincy

​Link to our Smelter Archaeology WebGIS
Link to our Smelter Historical GIS

Are you among the hundreds of Time Travelers who have submitted story points to the Explore App? Have you been planning to share some stories but want more options? Either way, we have good news. Improved options for sharing stories on the Explore App are now live! 

The new "Share Story" button is easier to find (see above!). You can still choose a location and a year on the Time Traveler's historic maps, and tell stories about anything — from your grandmother's pasty recipe to your childhood sledding memories. As always, you can illustrate your story with photographs. Now, you can also include audio and video files! We improved the interface so you can easily see your uploads and edit them as you go. 

This updated interface was team-built by Michigan Tech students in Dr. Robert Pastel's Human-Computer Interaction class. The students met with the Keweenaw Time Traveler directors and research associates, heard about our need to enhance the capability of the "Share Story" feature, asked a lot of good questions, and got to work. Assessment of their drafts was conducted by graduate students working with Dr. Karla Kitalong in Michigan Tech's program in Scientific and Technical Communication. Just like the Keweenaw Time Traveler itself, interface updates and data additions result from great team work between faculty and students across the university.   

Want to learn more about getting started with the Explore App? Check out these earlier blog posts about the Explore App's capabilities and the How-to Videos.  You can also go directly to the HESA Lab's YouTube Channel. 

Here's a shared story about Michigan's Oldest Woman who lived at 212 Iroquois Street in Laurium! What kinds of stories will you tell?