Mapping Nobel Prize Winning Women

After the recent passing of author Doris Lessing (1919-2013) I became curious how many women have received the Nobel Prize since 1901. Not that many I have come to discover. Of the 851 individual Laureates, 45 have been women, or roughly 5%. According to NobelPrize.org, 25 organizations have been awarded the Nobel Prize, as well. Examples of organizations include Bangladesh's Grameen Bank (2006), Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, 1999), Amnesty International (1977), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, 1965).

The connection between education for women and girls and economic progress and development is clear. Investments in education for women and girls in developing and underdeveloped countries results in positive economic and social progress. Around the world, from the United States to Africa and Southwest Asia, investment in education, and especially STEM education, improves wages, improves health care, reduces child mortality, and increases political action and commitment.

My hopes are the map may help inspire people to improve the recognition of the contributions of women throughout all segments of global society. 

Click "Legend" to open the map's legend. The pins are color-coded by the Nobel award, green for chemistry, red for physics, silver for economics, and so forth. Click on a pin and the information for a particular Nobel winner will appear. When the window opens, scroll to the bottom. I added a link to the winner's entry on NobelPrize.org and used a link to their Wikipedia.org entry for a picture, if one was available. I assigned the colors, by the way. The interactive map above was created from a simple spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet is very simple to create. A little forethought must be given to how the data is organized. As I tell my students, you don't have to be an expert in the topic, but you do have to understand how to organize information. In this case, I mapped the winners by their place of birth. However, in many cases, the winners did not their award in their home country. Before and during World War Two, a mass exodus of people from Western, Central, and Eastern Europe occurred in advance of Nazi Germany influence. In some cases, the location does not note the place of birth but the country of residence at the time of the award. This special circumstance might make for an interesting lesson plan for middle or high school students, by the way. Both men and women Nobel Prize awards for the 1940's exhibited considerably disruption due to the war.

As the above spreadsheet illustrates, nothing fancy is going on. Year, Winner's Name, City, Country, Prize Category, etc. A couple of special notes; for the data to be mapped, some information about location must be provided. Now, I have provided "city" and "country." I could use a technique called "geocoding," but this process comes at a real cost. Some processes included with ArcGIS Online come with a real dollar amount attached and cost real money. Geocoding is one of those processes. I opted not to charge geocoding against our account and elected to use geographic coordinates instead. Thus, the "x" and "y" are latitude and longitude. The ArcGIS Online dashboard comes equipped to handle data attached to geographic coordinates at no cost to the user. The upload process is also smart enough to identify geographic coordinates in a spreadsheet in the event an unsophisticated user provided unusual field headings, like "peanut_butter" and "jelly." The data within the record is often enough to offset unfortunate headings.

There are two columns missing from the above graphic. The first missing field is "image_LNK." This is a reserved field name. Use this field to provide a link to an online image. The field must contain the fully qualified URL to the image. The second missing field is "wiki_LINK." This field contains the URL to pertinent Wikipedia page. I believe adding other custom fields is possible, though I have not explored this potential. To provide better coverage, below is the rest of the spreadsheet.

This is not a precise tutorial for putting data online. The process is not more involved than what I have described, though. ArcGIS Online maps can be shared with selected Murray State people or Murray State groups, or can even be made public. And, as you have see above, can even be embedded in a website.

The same potential for building map applications similar to the two maps I have posted exists for kids in kindergarten through high school in Kentucky. Sponsored by the Kentucky Geographic Alliance, all K-12 schools in Kentucky have at their disposal ArcGIS Online for Education. Check out connected.esri.com for complete details.

For more information about ESRI's ArcGIS Online for Education at Murray State contact Michael Busby at the Mid-America Remote sensing Center (MARC.)

Kickstart a Makerspace

Adapted from "Kickstart A Kid's Makerspace," by James Floyd Kelly; Make Magazine; Vol. 38; April/May 2014.

When I run across a good idea I occasionally take exception to parts of the idea's premise. Take this article by Mr. Kelly. He has an awesome idea. He states, "Young makers grow up to become world-changing engineers and leaders." I agree wholeheartedly. So, why would I take exception to his idea?

Because I don't think it should be limited exclusively to kids.

Many people have great ideas. Some people are late bloomers, and don't get an original idea until later in life, in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Why should brilliant technology be provided exclusively to the young? Aren't we really interested in fostering ideas, regardless of age, gender, or race, or religion?

Blacktooth laser cutter

 The notion of placing technology in the hands of our youth makes complete sense. After all, we adults want to raise thoughtful adults to take care of us in our old age, after our days of making and creating have been replaced by sipping cool drinks on the beach reading our favorite yarn. But, like I said, placing tech and ideas in the hands of more than our youth seems like a good idea, especially those college-aged youth who never had an opportunity to be creative, and adults back-in-college who may want to be entrepreneurs and create jobs.

Kelly outlines a couple of paths to follow, a low-cost Makerspace valued at about $11,000; and a higher-cost Makerspace, valued at about $24,000.

CNC router

I don't want to re-create Kelly's great article here; we can all read and evaluate. We should all consider the long-term value in investing in such technologies from a variety of perspectives. Nothing bad, and much good can from these experiences.

If you don't read Make magazine, you should.

Also, check out makezine.com for thousands of ideas for making, creating, building, wiring, and programming.





 

Murray State to Host Local "SharkTank"

Murray State University is hosting a SharkTank-type entrepreneurial pitch contest this month. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, June 17, 11:00 a.m., inside Heritage Hall. The competition is sponsored by the Office of Entrepreneurship within the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, along with the Kentucky Angels Network and the Kentucky Innovation Network.

Loretta Daniel, Director of the Innovation and Commercialization Center (ICC) at Heritage Hall, said the competition is open to teams of three-to-four people with the winner in Murray taking home $1,000. The winning team will also advance to a competition this fall in Frankfort, where team members will pitch their idea directly to the entire Kentucky Angel Investors Network (Kentucky Angels).

The competition is open to the public, and will be a good way for local inventors to mingled, meet, and network.

Anyone wishing to enter the pitch competition should visit www.kyinnovation.com or contact Daniel at 270-809-6071.

Joshua Hutson Applies to Teach Arduino in Hart Hall

Joshua Hutson recently submitted an application to teach programming technologies in a section of IDC099. If approved, Joshua will be introducing Murray State students to Arduino via instruction and lab activities in Hart College. The IDC099 course will be available the 2nd-half of the Fall 2014 semester.

Murray State IET Hosts E-Day

Over 400 4th and 5th graders from around western Kentucky descended upon Murray State to experience physics. Faculty and students of the Jesse D. Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology ran local middle school students through a variety of exercises, experiments, and technologies. 

The variety of stations allowed students hands-on access to simple robots, lighting & controller systems, human-sized Jenga blocks, and an egg-catapult. Each of these stations demonstrated simple and accessible technologies while also presenting the physics at work.