Welcome to the 2026 GIS in Action Annual Conference hosted by the Oregon & SW Washington Chapter of the Geospatial Professional Network & Cascadia ASPRS.
The Student Atlas of Oregon by the Center for Geography Education in Oregon has provided materials for teachers across the state to use in their classes for middle school aged students’ geographic education since 2009. In preparing updated pages for the upcoming third edition, a range of considerations arose such as the appropriate level of complexity for the audience, what kinds of datasets are newly available or now unavailable, and what generalization protocols are necessary when cartographically arranging data that was originally produced to be used at different scales. This presentation will cover some of the challenges in producing age-appropriate maps and some of the techniques utilized to convey these complicated real-world topics in a way that is conducive to students drawing their own connections about the world through these cartographic designs.
