English

FIrst Day

New Westminster CA — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:43:37 -0500

OK so this is my first attempt and I am just starting tonight. Holy moly what a cool journey this will be. So many things to choose from and alot of great resources. Onwards and upwards

Greenmap site received environmental award!

Blekinge Sweden — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:42:44 -0400

It is with great honor I received an environmental price for my 3 years of voluntary work with the site EkoBlekinge.se which is also home for Blekinge Green Map.

The motivation was that the site makes local environmental and sustainable projects visible and for the work with Green Map.

900 children in the region has participated and shared their thoughts on the subject "We will save the world". The result is a book with drawings, poetry and interviews on the subject which will be sold and the earnings is the award price. This enables me to put more work into the site and Green Map. That in combination with the publicity for EkoBlekinge.se will boost the visibility of local sustainable initiatives!

More information (in Swedish).

Be Detroitish!

Detroit — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:03:02 -0400

The Detroit Green Map team met in September to discuss goals and a plan for the future of Detroit’s Green Map. Folks involved in transportation, project planning, education, and art gathered at Marygrove College to represent the diversity of Detroiters.

We are in the middle of grant writing to fund the creation of a website and social media platform that will encourage Detroit residents to “be Detroitish” and celebrate the strengths and beauty of Detroit’s past, present, and future through participation in the Detroit Green Map. To lead off the grant efforts, the mission statement was dusted off and revised to reflect the new energy in Detroit. Strategies for increasing community participation were discussed and we plan to implement some of those ideas once the website and social media programs are in place. As the grant writing process proceeds here in Detroit, please share your tips for grant success.

4BsHive - Collaborational Green Mapping across Europe

Harta Verde Romania — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:21:29 -0400

The '4BsHive' is a transnational project between four river cities: Bristol (UK), Berlin (Germany), Budapest (Hungary) and Bistrita (Romania). The project set in motion a collaborative, green map-making process within and among these four European partners:

Querspur-Verein zur Förderung soziokultureller Aktivitäten mit dem Medium Video (Berlin, Germany)
Asociatia Ascendent (Bistrita, Romania)
GreenBristol Ltd. (Bristol, UK)
Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete (Budapest, Hungary)

The 4BsHive project started right after a Grundtvig Preparatory Visit in early 2009. After two years of numerous adult learners mobilities and green mapping workshops, the 4BsHive project ended in July 2011. You may learn about all common and local results at the European Shared Treasure database. One of our greatest result is a documentary video, which highlights scenes from the study visits and the workshops in each of the cities involved.

A Green Map is a locally-made map that uses the internationally standardized set of icons from Green Map System organization from New York to highlight the ecological, social, cultural, and sustainable resources of a particular geographic area. Green Mapmaking is about exploration, discovery, sharing and supporting these resources.

It involved the creation and improvement of online maps in all 4 cities as well as a paper map in Budapest. You can find these maps under:

All 57 adult learners (16 from Bristol, 16 from Budapest, 6 from Berlin and 19 from Bistrita) were recruited and visited Partner cities on Study Visits (mobilities). A more considerable number of adult learners were involved taking into account local learners not travelling on mobilities. The adult learners were partly from disadvantaged and under-represented social groups including older people, those without basic qualifications and unemployed people. In this informal adult education programme, the participants had the opportunity to learn and practice Green Mapmaking using a variety of methods. These included: online geographical information system (GIS), web mapping using Open Green Map platform, gaining new ICT skills such as blog writing, the skillful use of everyday multimedia tools like mobile phones, the utilization of free multimedia applications on the internet; and learning more about sustainability issues and active citizenship.

The programme included one preparatory meeting, four international Study Visits hosted by each of the partners, one final evaluation meeting, and locally held workshops. The process included photography, film-making, audio recording and editing as well as storytelling, thematic city tours (on foot, biking, by bus or boat), and other cultural activities. In the Study Visits, Adult Learners were able to exchange personal experiences and learn about other European communities and what differences and similarities they have with other Europeans.

Beyond the educational process, the main outcomes of the project are the 4BsHive blog written in a collaborative manner, a film documentary on the project as well as an electronic booklet entitled “The 4Bs’ Green Mapping Guide”.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Green Map Workshop in Kitakyusu

Green Map Japan — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:27:00 -0400

"NPO Think of Satoyama" did GM workshops on the last weekend supported by Zenrin, which is a one of biggest company of maps in Japan. Kids and their parents teamed up together for map making. This workshop took placed at a center of Kitakyushu-city (southern part of Japan), which was the one of biggest polluted city in '60. The Government, Corporations and citizens have collaborated together to turn "polluted city" to "sustainable city". And here they are!

20 pair was participated on the workshop. We found fishes, green energy, share bike, trashes on the river, illegal-parked-bike and so on. We will introduce the map sooner on the site!

Green Map and Water map of Kazan city

Kazan Russia — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 02:41:23 -0400

Kazan is the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, a major industrial and cultural center in the Volga region, one of the oldest cities of Russia. A unique combination of Muslim and Christian cultures and advantageous geographic location makes the city a popular attraction for domestic and international tourism.
In 2013 Kazan will hosts the World summer Universiade games. We want our city to be not only the most sports, but also the greenest city of Russian Federation.
In 2009 the Children's Center "Tankodrom" and the Institute of ecology of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences made an agreement with the «Green Map» organization. In fact, this is the first project in the Russian Federation.
In the first stage we made the Green map of "Tankodrom" district. Large park area, playgrounds, outdoor swimming pool, stands of drinking water, container sites for solid waste collection are shown on this map.
The project was presented on regional and All-Russian contests, such as «Top 50 Innovative Ideas for the Republic of Tatarstan», «Youth. Science. Culture», «National property of Russia», «ECO-2009», «The future of a strong Russia is in high technologies», on the All-Russian Olympiad on ecology.
In 2011 Oleg Shamaev and Aigul Khafizova have made "Water map of Kazan city". The project became a winner of the "Russian National Junior Water Prize". Oleg and Aigul will represent Russian Federation at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize in Sweden in August 2011 with this project.

NYC LEED Open Green Map

Intern at Green Map — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:05:06 -0400

So much in this city can be described as “green.” Each street corner may reveal a sprawling farmer’s market of local fruits and vegetables or perhaps a painted green concrete bike lane. As New York City enters an age in which it must improve its energy yield, Green Building is at the forefront in creating a sustainable metropolis. In 2007 Mayor Michael Bloomberg released PlaNYC, a plan to reduce New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30% by 2030. In April 2011, an updated version of PlaNYC concluded that 80% of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions are due to the operation of buildings. From sprouting skyscrapers to historic brownstones, buildings define our cityscape. In order to move towards sustainability, NYC must improve the performance of existing buildings and any new construction to come.

As an Urban Design and Architecture Studies student at New York University, I have focused my efforts on environmental design and issues. NYU and Green Map System have worked together in the past to create NYU Open Green Map, highlighting the university’s Green Grants projects. Since the start of my internship, Green Map System has allowed me to continue my studies of Green Buildings. And I have learned plenty. In 2006, Green Map System launched the Powerful Green Map of NYC: Charting the Energy in New York’s Environment. At that time The Solaire of Battery Park City was the only certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building in NYC. Since then, over a hundred new sites have been LEED certified displaying New York City’s commitment to sustainability.

Within the first few weeks of my internship, I took the initiative to create an Open Green Map of all the certified LEED buildings in the five boroughs of New York City. In addition, all of the LEED sites will later be added to an extension of the 2006 Powerful Green Map of NYC. While I worked on the map, Green Map System also sponsored my enrollment in a LEED Green Associate Course at the Center for Architecture. This provided me with an excellent understanding of LEED while I worked on the Open Green Map. With the completion of the class, I have now been accepted to take my LEED Green Associate test in the upcoming year. I am so grateful for the support from Green Map System in my pursuit to be an accredited LEED Green Associate.

NYC LEED Open Green Map is constantly being updated with new information on certified LEED buildings. I look forward to this upcoming fall as I continue my work at Green Map System. Stay tuned!

Brigid Keating – New York University 2012

Barcelona guerilla Green Map out now!

Barcelona Spain — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 08:45:54 -0400

This is guerilla Green Map for tourists that adds a layer of eco sites to the current free map from the Barcelona Tourist Office.

The official map given out by the Barcelona Tourist Office has very little information on sustainable living in the city, and is sponsored by Mc Donalds. So we decided to add an extra layer to the current tourist map with the more eco-friendly alternatives of the city; eco shops, slow food restaurants, green areas, nature spots, bicycle related sites etc.

The idea is that you print our guerilla map on tracing paper (DIN A3 without scaling!) and place it over the maps from Barcelona Turisme. Those are free and available at their offices around town. That way you have all the information you need to enjoy your stay in Barcelona.

For more information or to add other sites, please visit: www.OpenGreenMap.org/bcn.

Special thanks to Sofia Trindade for making this map happen.

This Barcelona guerilla Green Map is a project by Pöko Design
www.pokodesign.com.

Download the Barcelona guerilla Green Map here: http://www.greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/node/10793

Barcelona Green Map - map it video!

Barcelona Spain — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 04:54:25 -0500

Ernest Vidal and Coco Coronal together with Petz Scholtus created a video to promote the use of the Barcelona Green Map! If you like it, please spread it around, thanks!

Reykjavik Greenmap news

iceland nature2 — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:05:04 -0500

October 2010 the printed version of a Reykjavik greenmap was published. It coincided with the Reykjavik International Film Festival and later the Reykjavik Airwaves festival. We are therefore hoping that the printed map did draw attention to international crowd as well as local. The map was printed in 10.000 copies and is now about to be "sold out" (it is not sold however, it is distributed free of charge and sent to those requesting it for postage cost only).

I myself have been both a quiet observer and active member of the greenmap network since year 2002. For me the participation in an international gathering in Bellagio, Italy with a group of representatives for diverse green map projects from 23 countries around the world became the platform to experiment with the mapping, both in terms of teaching and map-making.

This Reykjavík Green Map publication is the result of a fruitful collaboration between me (dept. geography and tourism studies, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, University of Iceland), Guðrún Tryggvadóttir director (who has been the lead) and Einar Bergmundur programmer at nature.is and Reykjavík municipality (VisitReykjavik and environmental and planning agency of Reykjavik).

I am proud to announce that the printed version of Reykjavik Green Map is the first of its kind here in Iceland and is based on the web version that encompasses 100 icons. Our team is also the first one to greenmap the entire country of Iceland. That map is available online at nature.is

Since maps are always statical representation of a certain context, we are hoping that we can update the October version and manage to print another cohort before the tourist season in Iceland starts spring/summer 2011.