Be Black, Be Bold, Be Innovative, Show the World Equitable Geo. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to The North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from geoluminaries. So hi, everyone. I'm really excited again for this particular episode and our guest this time is a champion for GIS in education, which is something that is. really important when talking about GIS and how do we make it trickle down to not just the old people, but also the young people in schools. And so from where I come from, I'm from Kenya, and we rarely see GIS being used in, in the younger dynamic on the younger population. So being taught GIS, for example, in primary school, so that's maybe between age of six to maybe 18. I literally got exposed to GIS when I went to university in my third year, and I was doing a very primary course, which is environmental science. And so this conversation is not only pivotal for me. I think it's one of the components that would spearhead this conversation and just looking at what our guest is doing and how transferable that is. Might be for other regions as well and what that looks like impact wise and also tracking wise. And so I'm excited about this conversation on GIS for education. He's a supporter for educators and young people and just being able to ensure that GIS for schools. It's being used well and breaking down the complexities for teachers. How do we make young students adopt it and use it in a way that's sustainable, impactful, and also equitable? And so without further ado, allow me to welcome our guest for today, Jason Sol. Hi, Jason. Thanks for that. I definitely didn't do you justice in the introduction. Your presentation at the homecoming was very impactful. Maybe we can start with you briefly talking about yourself and then your presentation. Why was it important for you to be at the event? And why are these platforms important for, the kind of work that you do? Yeah, so a bit of background of how I Got into GIS in the first place. And so it was, um, a mixture of things. And probably about over 25 years ago, when I first started to get into GIS. Previous to that, I trained as an architectural technician. And so I was working on very early computer aided design work in London, in the very late eighties. And I went to university. And from there, I first encountered GIS. Similar to you, Yariwo, sort of, later in my courses. It was very complex, but because I'd done CAD before, I had an affinity for it. It was easier for me to understand, to abstract the world, essentially, using GIS. And from that, I went in to do some research, at university. We won some European, European Union funding money to run a GIS project for schools in the Nord in northern France and southeast England. And, this is around sort of the 2000s before Google Earth and things like this and Google Maps. Essentially, I was really just interested in how do we simplify this quite complex tool so teachers can make use of it in the classroom? Because it seemed to me that every kid should know about this. Every teacher should be using it and, and I just couldn't, why isn't it happening? And so I took that on with other people around me as well. Okay, this is our mission, this is what we want to, want to focus on. We can fast forward a little bit from there. And then, I had a small education company working with schools with GIS that, Esri UK, purchased in 2009. I went to work for them in their education scene. And eventually I was the head of education at, Esri UK. And so I was looking after higher education in schools. And that was, And then from there, I really went on to doing more work with Esri corporate, Esri Inc. as we would call them in the UK now, and doing more work with large partners like National Geographic and Microsoft, to a point where actually I transitioned across in 2021 to Esri Inc. as their global schools manager for K 12. And so that's that sort of, a whistle stop tour of how I got to where I am. And that's coming back into, if we think about the North Star and the homecoming, and and my role in that, and it may not be obvious to people, it may be obvious to people on the podcast, but, uh, I'm an able bodied, middle aged, straight, white guy. In terms of intersectionality, I don't have too many intersections that affect me, but I do see myself as an ally in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so I'm thinking about, okay, what's my role, what do I do in this? And so one of those things for me in terms of being an ally, I'll take it very seriously, is turning up. And so when the first homecoming came around, also it's at Howard. Wow, I've never been to Howard, I want to go to Howard. And so for me to go there and just to learn, just to sit, absorb, be out of my comfort zone. Uh, to a certain extent, particularly this year, there's a lot of, call and return. I have no idea what's going on. There was some singing going on in there. I've never experienced any of these things in a conference before. It's amazing. And so for me, it's really, it's a big learning experience. But there's also, there's some amazing people there, there's some really super smart people, so I'm just thinking, okay, how can they help me do the thing I need to do, how they can help me do the role that I need to play, and on top of all that, people are a lot of fun there, it's a really good time, so there's not one reason to go there, there's multiple ones in there, for me. Fantastic. Thank you Jason for that. I wanna ask a two part question. So, you've told us a little bit about your role, and I'd like to better understand what it means to be in education at Esri, but also I'd like to ask you about how you see your role in GIS changing in the future. I see my role as like a bridge between two worlds. So between the Esri tech technology role, it's a high tech, GI company. I have one foot in that space. Consider myself to be reasonably technical. I understand how the tech works and how to apply it. My other thought is family planted in school classroom, but these two groups rarely speak the same language. There's lots of misunderstandings happening that time. I've seen my role over the years has been able to translate between these things, be able to say to the company, this is what these people need. This is what the teachers need. And then turning around and facing the teachers and saying, okay, this is how you can use it in the classroom. This is how you can teach with it. I think we're going through a lot of time. Of teaching about GIS, and most teachers don't want to learn about GIS, they want to be better teachers, and so a better way to approach it is actually using technology to teach with it, so teach better geography, teach better earth science, teach better environmental science through the medium of GIS. And it's really thinking about that, and that's where the educator part comes in and thinking about pedagogy, how do we sequence these things, how do we model the teaching of these things for teachers so they can understand it in the first place. And then apply that and deliver that for their students in the classroom. It's very easy with GIS, the cognitive load can be huge. So I see our role a lot of the time to be very much aware of that. And how do we give you just enough information at the right time for you to progress and actually do something meaningful in the classroom to the end of the day, to really improve the learning for the young people in the classroom and to excite them, but they want to learn more about GIS, essentially. And that's the subject that they're studying. And so that's, the roles can be quite varied. So we could be working with one school, one teacher, we could be working with the whole country in designing a whole system. How do you actually put a system in place that allows, a whole education ministry to adopt GIS? Um, Jason, one of the other things that struck me and I like that you've talked about, your knowledge on easy technology and how we can have that planted in classrooms, you've mentioned young people. I think it would be interesting to give context on as well. What is the age group? We are looking at and also how. We are able to track the success of these programs. Do you monitor that and see how these students are evolving and how this probably would impact their choice of career? I'll tell you, so probably if we look at the age ranges, first of all, so probably five, six, seven years ago, we were looking mainly at middle school and high school in there, but I think recent changes and maybe come and talk about something called. National Geographic Mapmaker, a new concept for delivering GIS technology and content. We can certainly move into elementary schools, uh, and so I see a pathway from elementary school to middle school to high school and often to university or community college in there, 18 actually, being good enough to actually, and skilled enough to go and get a job, so I think it's very important. GIS is very, unusual in terms of technology, where you could plot a pathway around it from an elementary school. All the way through into a career at 18 or go and study at university, you a researcher at university and on on from there. You know, so, and only really meaningful and impactful life, through using it. There's not many, any technologies that are allowed to do that. And and so in terms of tracking, so let's just come back to your comment. You didn't find GS until you were to you in your third year. Now that was, that's a really common experience around that because, and you only found it 'cause you went to a particular course. So the scope of people can actually access GIS, say 10 years ago, it was really tiny. You were lucky enough to go on a particular course that actually did GIS, and you learned about the GIS on there. So a small fraction of the population. If I use the UK as an example, so it's, I know very well, we started our GIS for schools program. Yeah. 10 years plus ago. Around there and the same situation. So students are only encountering GIS at university in there. Edge of the UK are now regularly employing graduates from their graduate scheme who first used GIS at school. So they use it for various projects. They're retracting data with Survey123. ArcGIS Online in there and suddenly it was a thing in there. And so I can say we've certainly shifted, the age range down, maybe to a little bit of middle school as well in the UK. And I think we do see some of that in, in certain parts of the US as well. So you've got a program called the Geospatial Semester. James Madison has been very successful in working with young people in feeder schools for the university and encourage them to do more work around that. And in terms of working across whole countries, that's still probably a work in progress. We are seeing that the Department of Education in England did adopt something called the National Education Nature Park. which uses GIS technology to get young people out and engage in nature, collecting data about information around their schoolyards, how do they green their schoolyards, how do they improve biodiversity. And so we're seeing implementations like that are being successful. And then just generally, we see thousands of schools globally who are using Esri technology in their classrooms on a regular basis. I feel building up on that question, do you think there's opportunity to bring that Outside of the uk, outside of the US to other parts of the globe, how do you see that upscaling to other regions and how easy or complex would it be to adopt, for example, in Kenya or any other country on the global south? The global south. So we would see Esri, South Africa for instance, has a really successful education program. They've got, a number of ways they actually approach it part, particularly if there's no, or if there's low or no internet connection, various other mechanisms where you can still engage with GIS. And other more traditional sort of online applications around GIS in there. Esri Rwanda, does some work around there. And I know Esri East Africa, is, there's little pockets of it. And it's something, and so it's for us also working with National Geographic. It's definitely an area we want, we're looking to expand into. But it's it's hard. It's fine. We have, we have the Mpesa, Academy. In Kenya, there are big news about technology, doing really amazing stuff, actually getting out into the community, doing community focused activities, and all the sort of things, almost like project based learning applications in there. And there's some quite sophisticated things, and having an impact on the ground as well. But these tend to be isolated. We haven't quite managed yet to join these things together. And, that's certainly for me something that I'll be working on, certainly over the next few years, is to, how to improve that. And who are the people? Where are the people we need to work with? That's the other thing, we need to find like minded people in the countries, in the continents in there to come together as a group. That's great. So, Jason, let me ask you this. Many of us who are members or active in North Star of GIS got involved because of challenges that we experienced as professionals working in GIS. What challenges, if any, you have faced as an ally of Northstar GIS, and you've experienced more of homecoming than I have, and I'm a board member. What keeps you coming back to homecoming year after year? It's been quite, it's quite amazing actually, my own sort of self development and self education around this release. It's if I was to take it, just take a step back from before I maybe even knew about Northstar. Back in as a UK And thinking about, okay, I was making a really common mistake. I think a lot of white people might make is they're like, I'm not racist. So therefore anything I do can't be racist. I realize now that I was an idiot, but it took me, once I realized that, and then I read and I think, okay, there's the book, how to be an anti racist, that sounds like a good place to start. And so I think I didn't even get to the end of the first chapter and I put it down and thinking, well, that changes everything. Uh, so for understanding the things that I do, things that I'm part of, if I want to be anti racist around that, then I can't continue to do the thing I'm doing. So I have to change. And also now I know, I can't unknow this knowledge. And so I can't be complicit, so now I'm in a bind, so I have to change stuff, I have to do different things in there. And so that means, in terms of being an ally, I'd say that the challenges would be actually being in a room with all white people, which I'm sure you're very familiar with, and I'm the one who's right, I'm in the room. So I'm saying, what about diversity, equity, inclusion? What are we doing here? How are we shaping our work in there? Sometimes it's a tumbleweed, but doing it consistently, every time, and not being afraid, even if it's uncomfortable, even if I'm finding it uncomfortable. Other people are finding uncomfortable. It doesn't matter. That's the, that's the role. So you were at Homecoming this year. You were at Homecoming last year. We're looking forward to having you at Homecoming in 2025. Why should somebody else, why is it important for you to continue to be a part of Homecoming? I'd like to see more allies there. And why should they come? I think it's actually Immerse yourself, be open to, and listen, and listen, my first year, I learned a huge amount. I decided just to keep my mouth shut and listen. No one wants to hear from me. And so that gave me strength that I'm doing the right thing. It is the right thing to be doing, even if it is uncomfortable. And then think about, I'm this, six foot two, able bodied, straight white guy. What's the risk to me? What's the risk to me to raise my voice? Very little. So it's all, it feels like the least I can do to have more allies thinking that way, from my perspective would be a help, and so that's why I come there just to immerse myself, meet friends who I've now made that, in that, keep learning and it's fun. It's fun. This year's one, the singing, I was not expecting the singing. Great. Thank you for that. So I'm curious, Jason, I know you've talked about, you've obviously been in the industry for quite some time. You've talked about 25 years of experience. You've moved from ESRI UK to ESRI Global. And so I'm curious, what has been your biggest breakthrough in this journey through the years? I would say there's probably two for me, and it was really with the advent of ArcGIS Online that came in. So ArcGIS Online took us. From pretty much using ArcMap or maybe, Edgy or these other sort of applications. And so we had some silverlight applications in there that were, you start to go install them. There were still lots of barriers to schools actually getting involved in this. And suddenly you could open up a website and do some interesting things. And that was a game changer in there. But then we had to change up. I think we were still at that stage, still teaching a lot about GIS. It was almost like the training. If you went to a university to meet pre service teachers. Uh, I was seeing a lot of them getting a standard one on one, GIS training set from maybe from the university in there, and it doesn't relate to their pedagogy. It doesn't relate to what they need to experience in the classroom. And so I was really thinking about, okay, we need to change this. We need to be, we need to be useful for them and there's a, I think at that point there, GIS had the potential to become a solution to a teacher's problems. Rather than just being another problem to solve. I don't think we weren't there yet. I think we're very much on that journey at the moment. And really, the concepts, I'm sure I wasn't the one to invent it, I'm sure it was around before that, but the idea of teaching with GIS. Using GIS as a medium for young people to experience the latest content, the latest data, the latest tools we have to learn about the world. And what we're doing is helping the teacher be a better teacher and hopefully create a more engaging lesson for the students. With this new technology, with the added bonus, it's going to be some osmosis where, the students are going to absorb some GIS, they're going to learn about layers and transparency and turn layers on and off, just some really basic stuff that's going to just absorb incident, and with that sort of, hope and work to actually then, The ones who are really interested, there is a space for them to go on and do more, to actually then learn about GIS. I'm really excited that you mentioned, ArcGIS Online because I get really excited when people mention emergent tech and how GIS has evolved over time. I think I definitely agree. I think ArcGIS Online has been a big game changer, even from where I'm sitting. And so I'm curious when you're talking about emergent tech and how you see that shaping how we look at GIS for education, you've talked about. How it was exciting when you had GS as a medium and not just actually a solution to a teacher's problem. And so I'm curious, what are you excited about? So in 2023, we started to work more closely with National Geographic Society and working together with other teams inside Esri, Mapmaker. And we don't, if you don't think about that as simply as an app, it's essentially, it's in that configuration of that. But if you think beyond that, I think it was a concept. And essentially what we've done, we've been able to, from all the experience we've had with thousands of, uh, interactions with teachers over the years, seeing what works. And MapMaker is the manifestation of all the things inside of GIS that works. 2D and 3D inside one app. Swipes all inside one place, rather than being in a different place, you have to go, it's hard to go and find. Curated content that's particular for, selected for the curriculum. Not the millions of items inside ArcGIS Online or elsewhere on the internet. And then also, targeted resources that deal with particular standards. And so if you think about MapMaker as being a concept of actually bringing these things together, I think that's a breakthrough. Here's a package of things you can go and do as a teacher, go and teach Earth Science, Environmental Science, World Geography, with this package, with technology that's designed for you, with content that's designed for you, and with lessons that are designed for you. So that's, for me, certainly the continued development of online has allowed us to do that thing and get to that point. And this is where I think we're starting to be a solution to these problems rather than another problem for them to solve. And beyond that, beyond say, map makers for the masses of people just actually getting, going with GIS. It's going to be, there's a, everyone's talking about AI, stuff like that in there, and so I've been looking, thinking, I'm fairly sceptical, thinking where does it fit? What is it? We've had machine learning for, for, you know, decades, around now. I'm just starting to see, with large language models into ArcGIS, and I'm interested in people not using any GIS, and don't have any GIS knowledge. That's my interest in that. And we're starting to see AI being in there. Whereas before, you need to know a lot. If you want to ask a question of the GIS, show me the median income for houses in Kentucky. You've got to know a lot of knowledge before you want to actually use the technology, if you want to use, say, the filter tool inside MapViewer, inside ArcGIS Online, a lot of buttons to click, you've got to understand the statistics, and things like that. You can ask that question. You can just simply ask that question. Show me the median household income in Kentucky. And the map can show you that in there. So in terms of actually accessibility, maybe democratizing access to this type of content, you can actually, you haven't got to, you haven't got to understand the buttonology to go through and make all these clicks in there. So simplifying that process. Same with things like smart mapping. So people can create some smart mapping, some nice maps using the AI instead of actually the smart mapping interface. And the reason I say that is because our experience of working with novice users is, that's the barrier they hit. That's where the cognitive load flows over them, their eyes glaze over and they switch off. So I think we can maybe, we can get people asking more complex, maybe meaningful geographic questions through the use of AI. So I think that's a really exciting, it's not there yet, but I think that's a really exciting emerging area for us. So let's come to that. And very quickly, I'm not sure what drones are, maybe emerging drones are out in there, but drones. Blended with VR, to go out and fly a drone, build a 3D model, this idea of digital twins in there. Recent advances in the technology again inside the Scene Viewer and things like that, have democratized the ability to actually go and create your own VR experiences. I was at school in Detroit, Frederick Douglass Academy, in November. And I asked the kids, who's got a VR headset? And more than half did. I was amazed. And so, those students could actually be doing some climate biodiversity work. They could be doing work around the school campus in there. And incorporating their drone work into the rest of GIS work. And actually creating something really quite, I wouldn't say complex, but complete in terms of actually a virtual reality experience that they've generated from their data that they've collected in there. Previous to that, if I go back a year, 18 months. That was really hard to do. That was really hard to do. Right now. And now school kids can do it. So, because of these are exciting, but I think these sort of things make joyous exciting for young people. That's a perfect lead in Jason to 1 of my other questions related to our theme for homecoming 2024. I'm curious because you're talking about these young children having access to drones and really creating. Creating the future, what might an Afro futuristic utopia look like from your viewpoint? If I go back to the example of Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit, there's some really interesting opportunities, in terms of actually, there's some programs around biodiversity, climate sustainability. These young people could be driving that work. There's no reason why they actually couldn't be imagining what their local area looks like. They could be collecting the data, they could be collecting the VR. And creating the VR examples of actually what they want a new community space to look like, to present to, the mayor or to the city council, to whoever people might want to be funding this work in there, and presenting a really comprehensive vision of actually what they want to do, but actually, through some VR stuff, through their own imagination and work, and through that. They will develop, a whole range of different, really transferable technical skills. We'll get them employed, so they could actually make changes whilst they're at high school into their local environment, whether it's planning an urban forest, or planning some sort of nature park, or anything that's in their minds that they want to do. At the same time, Making them employable. You know, when I first went to work for Esri some years ago, one of the things I heard somebody saying, well, I joined this company because I want to help make the world a better place. And I will be honest with you. I was skeptical when I heard that, but what you are describing is actually that. So talk a little bit, if you will, about how you think GIS can best be used to make this world a better place. Cause I think that is one of the things that many of us are looking to do. Yeah. For me, I was, if I stay rooted in the education piece. And so it's really, it's about. For me, it's about allowing the young people, whether it's elementary school, first maybe to explore the world. Actually, if you think about what the GIS is, it's actually, it's a model of the world. And every single child is inside there. Where they live, where they play, where their family is, where they go to shops. It's all inside there. And all the things we want them to learn about are also connected there. So actually just connecting those three things together and just growing out of that. GIS being a standard way of teaching, it's almost like if you've been teaching geography. We can make the tools simple enough so you almost don't notice it. You're just actually just using a modern day atlas, if you want, for a better term. And as you would do, say, about 10 years ago, using a paper book. And then also thinking about that transfer, that sort of transfer of skills and knowledge as the children move up into across the different age phases in there. To the point where either they leave school and go up do other subjects, but they've got some sort of geospatial and geothinking in their heads. They can take with them to other places. And so, in terms of just being a citizen, they can understand data about them and about other places much better. They maybe think, yeah, well, I could do that. I'm going to go and collect some data about this thing. I learned that back in school. I'm going to be the activist in that space. But they could be doing something completely different. But they know it's a thing, in that. And then, but there's another path where actually there's people who will get interested in it, who want to come through into the workforce. And that will give us a much, uh, you know, a better, larger, diverse workforce where we've got all the talents instead of just some of the talents. So that's that pathway through. I love this. Thank you for what you're doing and bringing the young people along. Thanks Jason. And in the spirit of speaking about democratizing and opening up GIS to everyone, I'm curious on what you think, um, what do you think are the most underappreciated parts of what you do when talking about GIS for education? What do, what do we always overlook? From your perspective, I think particularly in the, in the GIS industry, uh, the complexity of working in schools, everyone thinks it's a really simple thing. Oh, I'll make it free. That job done. No, no, not even close. Uh, and so, uh, we're often working with schools that don't have a GIS manager. They don't know what GIS is. They don't have a GIS budget. They don't even have an IT person in the school. They have no real reason to use it in the class. And so, but we're still working in that space to actually go and persuade them to actually go and, you know, do something useful in there. So, our work is, is, uh, it's very complex in that it involves dealing with sort of, you know, high level pedagogy and different types of education models in there to actually help teachers understand it so we can speak the same language. Whilst always, whilst taking our technology and simplifying it, you know, because, you know, most of the time it's not designed for that elementary school in there. So, how do we break it down? How do we persuade the company to actually create something that's going to work in this particular space in there? So it's, it's a lot about talking to people from whether it's people who are actually in the class, the teaching assistants, teachers, students, talking to Jack, other people in the organization. So actually this, this is what we need to go, need to do. So it's really varied and really, really, really complex. So I think that, I think the complexity is the simple thing that's overlooked in there. It's a, it's course, simple, easy, just giving it, you know, and we, we've proved to death that that doesn't work. Wow. That really changes my perspective. I think I fall in that category. of its GIS. Just make it free, give it to schools. And now there's, now that we've just broken it down on what that looks like from, for you who's actually doing that, it's very interesting and very insightful to get that perspective as well. Last but not least, I have a two part question. One would be in the previous episodes, um, we've had different guests talk about what mapping means to them using sort of one liner or a one sentence, and I'm curious about that. Someone said mapping to them is like a tool for liberation. Someone said it's a tool for resistance. The most recent one was Dr. Liddell, who said to him, it's how he connects us to the past and create stories that resonate with us. And I'm curious to get your perspective on what mapping as a tool means to you with sort of a one liner. Interesting. It's like breathing. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not even thinking about it. It's just because I'm doing it here today. 3D work and some VR stuff. To me, I don't know, is it, um, for me, it's, it's. Liberation in terms of actually accessing the right content, understanding the world around you. I grew up in East London, so I used to fish and swim in the River Thames, understanding the landscape, where animals were, what state the tide was at, all sorts of different things like that that feed into me. And when I, now I look at that, and that's just, I can abstract all those things into a GIS in there. And so it's, it's everything. Um, thank you. That was, I like, I like how you've gotten that off of the top of your head. And it's also a really impactful one liner. Um, so we have this question, which we asked our guests on, you know, the idea and what was that like? Uh, what wasn't in your 2024 bingo card? Well, there's probably some obvious things that weren't in my bingo card, but, um, If I just, if I bring it back to the UK and just sort of, uh, give you a flavor. So I'm a big rugby fan. So rugby is like, is like American football, but without the pads and the helmet. I played a lot when I was a kid and when I was, when I was an adult. And England just beat France this weekend in the Six Nations. 26 25, the last kick of the game. I did not believe that was ever going to happen, and it did. So that made me very happy. Stepping outside of that, outside of rugby, uh, and coming into, I think, 2024, and we launched almost a year of Mapmaker in there. And we had an unbelievable reception from teachers about, so, you know, we created something we thought was right, based on our experiences. And, you know, I had one comment back from the Instant Apps team saying, can we please get some negative feedback? So it was like, I was, was not expecting the reception we had for that. No, it's far from perfect and we need to do lots more work on it, but I think we, we've hit the right line. Thank you. Thanks for that. Thank you so much. It has been great speaking with you, Jason. We really appreciate your insights, your coming to homecoming and the experience that you bring to our listeners. So thank you so much for being our guest today. Thanks Erica. Thanks very much. It's a real, I hope it's a real privilege and a real honor to be asked to come and do this. So thank you very much. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about Northstar of GIS, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at GIS Northstar. Northstar's programming is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. If you'd like to support the next season of the Northstar Gaze podcast, please submit your donations to northstarofgis. org slash donate. If you'd like to sponsor this podcast or the homecoming event, reach out to us at the following email address. Podcast at notestarofgis. org or notestargis. org slash sponsorhomecoming. You'll find all these links in the show notes. We want to thank our sponsors of the 2024 Homecoming event, our institutional partner ReGrid, and our sponsors New Light Technology, Afrotech, and Black at Work. We'd like to thank our keynotes, Tara Roberts, Linda Harris. Dr. Paulette Hines Brown and Vernice Miller Travis. We'd like to thank Howard University and the staff at the Interdisciplinary Building and Photography by Imagery by Chioma. We also want to thank our guests for trusting us with their stories. Tara, Linda, Paulette, Christian, Abraham, Jason, Vernice, Stella, Beye, Karen. Nikki, George, Frank, Labdi, Toussaint, Victoria, and the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team. And finally, thank you to the North Star team and our wonderful volunteers. We are your hosts of the Season 2 of the North Star Guest Podcast, which is based on the 2024 Homecoming Conference event. This podcast is produced by Ayesha Jenkins and audio production in collaboration with Cherry Blossom Productions, Kied Bodega, and Organized Sound. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geoluminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geofields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro are produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star GIS, Check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. If you'd like to support this podcast and North Star of gis, consider donating at North star of gis.org/donate or to sponsor this podcast, email podcast at north star of gis.org. You've been listening to the North Star Gaze.