UNI's GeoTREE Helps Iowa Map Success

GeoInformatics Training Research Education and Extension (GeoTREE) services benefit faculty, staff and students and a variety of stakeholders from public agencies, nonprofit organizations and private companies.

The GeoTREE Center at the University of Northern Iowa not only educates and provides technological experiences to current students, it also shares the research, studies, and facilities and services with the state of Iowa and beyond.

The GeoTREE staff and students carry out independent research and support research of faculty from different departments, such as biology, history, earth science and many others. For example, UNI social science education students Jacob Thiele and Mollie Ullestad worked with GeoTREE Center and the Geographic Alliance of Iowa to develop a series of story maps that were used to supplement fourth grade lesson plans for USA geography.

GeoTREE also develops and offers free tools and data to the public and assists communities and the state of Iowa. For example, they worked with Cedar Falls to develop a web mapping application to help Cedar Falls Utilities identify homes and businesses with high potential for energy savings.

Ramanthan Sugumaran founded GeoTree in 2006, and, with support from NASA, the program was able to take off. By supporting the effective use of geospatial technologies, UNI can provide support on a range of environmental, social, economic, governmental and other societal issues. The main goal of GeoTREE is to transfer geospatial technologies to federal, state and local agencies in the state of Iowa.