This week in the Public Lab community newsletter, grab your copy of the “international” Grassroots Mapping Forum (GMF), contribute your thoughts on trash in the next edition of the GMF, check out project updates from coastal Maine to the Czech Republic and get ready for the first OpenHour, focused on aerial mapping. Enjoy!

Announcements

Edition 5 of the Grassroots Mapping Forum is now out! This publication focuses on “international” projects from across the globe and includes essays, photos and maps from Israel, Spain, Uganda, Belize and China. Pick up a copy by visiting the Public Lab store: http://store.publiclab.org/collections/publications/products/grassroots-mapping-forum-issue-5-the-international-issue

Interested in writing an essay for the next Grassroots Mapping Forum? In the 6th edition of the Forum we will be examining trash. We make things, we discard things, we reuse some things. This Forum will be a place for anyone in the community to share their reflections and musings related to trash and waste. Read the call for submission here.

Secure SSL connections for the website are in progress, currently in testing: https://publiclab.org -- check out https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/58 for details.

Upcoming events

Reminder: The OpenHour series begins Monday, June 30th at 8:00pm EST on Google Hangout. We’ll be doing an open hangout on aerial mapping and new collaborative map developments. Meet us there!

Sunday, Muddy Sunday! Weekly intertidal waste plume mapping in Searsport Maine: http://publiclab.org/notes/RonHuber/06-20-2014/sunday-muddy-sunday-weekly-intertidal-waste-plume-mapping-in-searsport-maine

New and ongoing projects

Gulf Coast Public Labbers are working to develop a method to detect BP oil from tar while in the field: http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/06-25-2014/team-orca-resurrected-gulf-monitoring-consortium-test-for-bp-tar

Yesterday was the midpoint for Google Summer of Code 2014! Check out recent Google Summer of Code progress on MapKnitter, Sky Camera, and SpectralWorkbench: http://publiclab.org/tag/gsoc

Recent website upgrades include: * barnstarring (http://publiclab.org/wiki/barnstars) now sends email notifications to recipients * comments can now include uploaded images

An update from Ron Huber on Stockton Harbor (Maine) waste site media coverage and a list of potential heavy metal contaminants.

Kite aerial mapping looks for invasive Green Crabs in coastal Maine: http://publiclab.org/notes/code4maine/06-25-2014/kap-test-for-invasives-monitoring-project

Mapping restoration work at Bayou St. John in New Orleans continues as the first sprouting plants pop up: http://publiclab.org/notes/eustatic/06-23-2014/bayou-st-john-first-sproutings-and-west-protection-berm

A note from balloon mappers in the Czech Republic. Check out the images of styrofoam reuse for extra camera padding: http://publiclab.org/notes/JirkaPanek/06-23-2014/balloon-mapping-at-faculty-of-science-olomouc-czech-republic

Ned Horning gives us an update on work he’s been doing with the Photo Monitoring Plugin that runs in ImageJ/Fiji that allows you to pick the type of two-band index you want to create.

An update from the team working on sand frac mining who just completed a first aerial mapping session in Augusta, WI: http://publiclab.org/notes/mathew/06-25-2014/off-wind-kite-flying-redstone-rigging-in-augusta-wi

The DustDuino team provided an update on development of their particulate matter monitor and partnership with the Earth Journalism Network: http://publiclab.org/notes/Schroyer/06-26-2014/broadcast-dust-readings-from-a-smartphone

Research Note highlights

• Titan 2 IR (posted by cfastie)
• Troubleshooting white light instead of emission spectra (posted by lionheadrex)
• Important report on climate change 2014 (posted by amysoyka)
• Calibrating raw images, a step toward jpeg calibration (posted by nedhorning)
• Dissecting humidity from particle count in frac sand sampling (posted by Jdahlen. This note presents a question about air monitoring. Can you help answer it?)
• Youth balloon mapping workshop (posted by mjain26. This note presents a question about balloon mapping and youth education. Can you help answer it?)
• [GMC] Reference on the need to monitor for persistent dispersant chemicals (posted by eustatic)
• RaspberryPi NDVI (posted by noctividus)

Public Lab in the media

Public Lab Organizer and UCL ExCiteS student, Cindy Regalado, writes about how DIY processes encourage citizen participation as demonstrated through a workshop she conducted in the Netherlands, September 2013.

If anything was missed, please post a research note or email the list. Have a great weekend everyone! Shannon

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