MEET ME AT THE CORNER EVENT
2025 Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium Annual Conference
October 1st, 2025
Duluth, Minnesota
(This is a free event, but attendees are asked to register for planning purposes: see hyperlink in pdf below) 
2025_GIS-LIS_MMATC.pdf



Curious about the Future City Competition?
A casual, virtual drop-in meeting has been scheduled for September 11 at 3:00 pm. We’ll cover the 2025-2026 theme (Farm to Table) and a few resources, go over some details of the deliverables, and provide updates on changes for the 2026 competition. Most of the time will be an informal conversation—so come with questions! Email Betsy Narr at betsy.narr@brightworksmn.org for meeting link.

This year’s theme is Farm to Table. Students are challenged to design a city that eliminates food waste from farm to table and keeps your citizens healthy and safe. Our final state competition will take place on January 24, 2026 at Metro State University in St. Paul.

FCC is an extremely successful program in Minnesota thanks to YOU—one of the 100+ engineers and STEM professionals who volunteer each year. Last year, you may have joined us on behalf of an organization as a Special Award Judge and we wanted to let you know of some other ways to get involved too, if you were interested. 

Please consider volunteering as a mentor or judge this Future City season! Also, please forward this opportunity on to any colleagues who may also be interested!

1. Mentors visit with a Future City team at the students’ school (their teacher is present also). The time commitment is about an hour per week from late September to January. Mentoring can be partly in-person and partly virtual. In addition, two mentors could team up and take turns helping at the school. Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about mentoring!
   1. Schools in the following cities have requested mentorship support this year:
      1. Ham Lake/Andover
      2. South Minneapolis
      3. Burnsville/Eagan
      4. Verndale/Wadena
   2. Register as a mentor today (choose “Minnesota” as your state): https://link.edgepilot.com/s/ac5fe189/06awJH6gN0iFmCTw2pdnRQ?u=https://futurecity.org/mentor-registration/

2. Judges have two different opportunities (you can do one of them or both!)
   1. Essay Judge – virtual – volunteers read 5 research essays written by the students on the floating cities theme. A rubric and scoresheet are provided. Scores are submitted electronically. Time commitment: 3 hours. Essays are available to be judged starting in mid-December. Scores are due in early January.
   2. City Model/Presentation Judge – in person – volunteers come to the MN Regional Finals (January 24 at Metro State University) from 8 am-noon. Judges listen to 5-6 different student teams give a 7-minute presentation, then ask the students follow-up questions about their city model. Judges are in teams of two and friends can request to judge as a team. A rubric and scoresheet are provided. Coffee, treats, and lunch are provided to judges as well. Come meet some seventh graders who are as smart as you!
   3. Register as a judge today (choose “Minnesota” as your state): https://link.edgepilot.com/s/019a459e/SS2qY-dhBkm5sM8NJOJNmA?u=https://futurecity.org/judge-registration/

The art of surveying: searching for indications of humanity
The_art_of_surveying_searching_for_indications_of_humanity.pdf





Why Is The Public Land Survey System So Important
https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/02/16/sunday-video-public-land-survey-system/



Minnesota Land Surveyor's Deathbed Confession, 1907
By Jim Richardson
www.perfectduluthday.com/2025/02/01/minnesota-land-surveyors-deathbed-confession-1907/#comments




The 25^th Minnesota Future City Competition took place on January 18, 2025
 at Metro State University in St. Paul

Thirty teams of middle school students started working on their future city designs in September.

Prior to the in-person competition this month, student teams wrote a four-part project plan, a 1500-word research essay, and built a tabletop city model.

On January 18^th, students gave presentations about their cities and fielded questions from the judges.

The theme of this year’s competition was “Above the Current” – students designed cities that could float on water.

The Best Land Surveying Practices Award went to Mahtomedi Middle School (see team below "Klovers" picture with Robin Mathews, Pine County Surveyor). Mr. Mathews presented the award that recognizes the design that employs the best land surveying practices, taking into consider the high standards used by surveyors to help protect the public's safety and welfare. Judges for this special award were Scott Marlin, Sam Gibson & Robin Mathews. 

These are the teams who placed in the top five of the overall competition:

‘I wanted to do something cool’: Meet the man who made the Minnesota-shaped forest