- Overview
- Abstract Guidelines-Submissions
- Registration
- Schedule & Program
- Session Types
- Field Trips
- GeoBowl
- Student Paper/Poster Competition
- Sponsors
- Lodging
- Maps and Parking
- Sponsorship
- Contacts
The Department of Geography & Geospatial Sciences at South Dakota State University is hosting the 2023 AAG Great Plains-Rocky Mountain Division Annual Meeting. All conference events will be held at the Holiday Inn Sioux Falls – City Centre.
The Great Plains-Rocky Mountain Division represents approximately 200+ members from the states of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Abstract Guidelines and Submissions
An abstract is required for everyone presenting a paper or poster at the conference and must be submitted using the online submission tool. Abstracts can only be submitted during or after registering for the conference. A student or faculty registration for at least one contributor to the presented work is required for the abstract to be accepted..
Guidelines
- Abstracts must describe the presentation’s purpose, methods, and conclusions.
- By submitting an abstract, you are granting the conference organizers permission to publish it in the abstract compilation and to disseminate it electronically.
- Do not include author names, contact information, affiliations in the body of the abstract.
- Do not use bulleted lists.
- Do not include formatting codes in your abstract (justification, line height/centering, margins, spacing, fonts, page centering/numbering, suppression or tabs, etc.).
- Keep in mind that your abstract will not be edited. You are responsible for any spelling, grammatical, and typographical errors.
- Be sure to include keywords (see below).
Selecting Keywords
- Keywords may be compound (such as “political geography”).
- Do not use abbreviations.
- Should generally be nouns, not adverbs or adjectives.
- Keywords must be separated by a comma.
Submitting an Abstract
Upload abstracts for paper and poster presentations for the AAG-GPRM Annual Meeting using the online abstract submission tool. Abstracts are due no later than September 15, 2023. The AAG-GPRM Annual Meeting committee will review all submitted abstracts and publish a preliminary program shortly thereafter.
Log in to the online abstract submission toolRegistration
Includes Friday evening welcome reception, access to the conference and awards banquet on Saturday.
- $50 — students, K-12 educators, guests
- $170 — faculty/professionals
Schedule
Friday, October 6 — Field trips, Welcome reception
Saturday, October 7 — Paper/Poster Sessions, GeoBowl, awards banquet, keynote address
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Rebecca Lave, President, American Association of Geographers
Program
GPRM 2023 annual meeting program and abstracts
Plan your experience by browsing the abstracts and program ahead of the meeting.
Browse the program
Session Types
Presentations in the form of papers or posters are welcome. Presenters must be registered for the conference. All presentations will take place on Saturday, October 7th. All sessions are 100 minutes in length.
Paper Sessions
Paper sessions will consist of five presentations with each presentation allotted 20 minutes (including questions and discussion). Special sessions are welcome. Organizers of special sessions should contact George White for coordination.
- 5 presentations per session
- 20 minutes per paper (time includes presentation and discussion)
- Presenters must furnish their own computers/laptops
- Digital projectors/AV equipment will be provided in each meeting room
Poster Sessions
Materials, both textual and visual, should be of professional quality and be clearly legible from a distance of four feet. Poster dimensions should be no larger than 48 inches in width and 36 inches in height. Neither poster width nor height may exceed 48 inches. Text should be limited to brief statements. Posters are exhibited for informal browsing with opportunities for discussion with authors
Audiovisual Equipment
Rooms for paper sessions will be equipped with standard A/V equipment including screens or monitors, projectors, and A/V cables. Participants must provide their own computers and any specialized equipment or connectors necessary to connect to a standard A/V cable. Session chairs are strongly encouraged to bring a computer to the conference to support their speakers.
Special Needs
Poster or paper presenters with special needs or requiring non-standard audio/visual equipment should contact Bob Watrel no later than September 15 to make necessary arrangements.
Field Trips — Friday, October 6
All field trips depart from the conference hotel. Participants should meet in the hotel lobby at the time indicated. Be sure to bring a water bottle, hat, and be prepared for abrupt changes in weather conditions.
7 Billion Years Ago to the Space Age
Darrell Napton, South Dakota State University
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
This two-part field trip will demonstrate the work of geographers at the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resource Observation and Science Center (EROS) and continue to Pipestone National Monument where pipestone has been quarried by Native Americans for the past 3,000 years.
The visit to EROS will include short talks by geographers about their work and how they use remotely sensed imagery to increase our understanding of land issues such as wildfire, low density urbanization, and climate change. There will be a behind-the-scenes tour of EROS including the archives, which stores all Landsat imagery and declassified military intelligence photographs collected during the Cold War. EROS maintains one of the largest civilian collections of images of the Earth’s surface.
After a box lunch, we will go to Pipestone National Monument where a soft layer of pipestone (catlinite) is embedded within 1.7-billion-year-old Sioux Quartzite, one of the hardest rocks on Earth. Native Americans have quarried pipestone here and carved the rock into pipes for use and trade for 3,000 years. Some continue the tradition today by quarrying pipestone from the surrounding quartzite layer using only hand tools. After watching a short video, we will view the museum exhibits, and then look at some of the active quarries and walk the 3/4-mile Circle Trail, through the prairie and along Pipestone Creek, which has a population of the endangered Topeka Shiner minnow.
Cost per person: $25 (includes transportation and lunch)
Limit: 25 people
Urban Growth in the Heartland: Sioux Falls Past, Present, and Future
Bob Watrel, South Dakota State University
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Over the past decade, the population of Sioux Falls has increased by 25%. Managing growth allows for opportunity and challenges. To meet these challenges, comprehensive planning of land use, zoning, and urban services, among others are required. This field trip will start with a talk from the Sioux Falls Planning Office about the history of and current development initiatives for the city of Sioux Falls. This will be followed by a tour of the city looking at the active and future development areas. After this tour, we will there will be a talk about planning for the Sioux Falls Downton area and then a walking tour through the downtown.
Cost per person: $25 (includes transportation and lunch)
Limit: 25 people
GeoBowl
Compete in the Geography Bowl
Compete in the Geography Bowl
Enter your department’s GeoBowl team to compete at this year’s GPRM-AAG Regional Meeting for fun, prizes, and glory, as well as the chance to represent the GPRM Region in the World Geography Bowl at the 2024 AAG Meeting!
GeoBowl is a friendly and fun academic competition based on fundamental factual and conceptual geographical knowledge. Teams of six students compete—game-show style—to answer questions and earn points. Teams must have a minimum of six members but can also have reserves that can rotate in and out of different matches. Teams are encouraged to include a mix of graduate, undergraduate, male, and female students, but this is not a requirement at the regional level.
The top three teams and top three individual scorers will be recognized. The six highest-scoring participants, including a minimum of one undergraduate and one female representative, will also be invited to represent the GRPM Region and compete in the World GeoBowl at the AAG Annual Meeting. Those invited will receive a small stipend for their participation at the Annual Meeting.
Schools wishing to participate are required to pre-register and send the institution and departmental name, all team member names, class (grad or undergrad), and email of each team member to the 2022 GeoBowl coordinator. Please include the words GeoBowl in your team registration or any other GeoBowl-related correspondence. Deadline is September 29, 2023.
For more information, contact Kim Johnson Maier and Mason Maimaitijiang.
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Student Paper/Poster Competition
To be considered for an award, each student will need to register to attend their fall Regional Division meeting and submit their paper at that time. Awards will be presented at each Regional Division meeting.
- GPRM Region Awards for Best Student Papers and Posters — Awards are given for Best Graduate Student Paper, Best Graduate Student Poster, Best Undergraduate Student Paper, and Best Undergraduate Student Poster. Award amounts for each competition are $100 for first place, $50 for second place, and $25 for third place, with the exception of the best graduate student and undergraduate student papers, who will receive the AAG Council Award (see below).
- AAG Council Awards for Outstanding Undergraduate and Graduate Student Papers at Regional — These awards are designed to encourage undergraduate and graduate student participation at AAG Regional Division meetings and support their attendance (in-person or virtual) at AAG Annual Meetings. Each awardee (one undergraduate and one graduate) will receive $1,000/each in funding for use towards the awardee’s registration and travel costs to the AAG Annual Meeting. More information coming soon!
Sponsors
Thanks to our sponsors for their support towards this year’s conference.
Lodging
Holiday Inn Sioux Falls – City Centre
100 West 8th St, Sioux Falls, SD 57104 United States Get Directions
A block of rooms has been reserved for October 5, 6 & 7 at a rate of $119/night plus taxes and fees. Reservations must be placed by September 4 to receive the conference rate. If people would rather call in directly, the phone number is 605-339-2000 and the group code is AAG or they can reference AAG Regional Division Meeting.
Reserve your roomSponsorship Opportunities
Meeting Overview
The 2023 meeting of the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Division of the AAG is expected to draw an enthusiastic group of 200+ active geographers, including faculty, practitioners, graduate students, and undergraduate students, from Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Sponsor support will enhance our meeting by connecting geographers to related organizations and their goods and services. All funds generated by sponsorships are used to offset participant registration costs which, in turn, promotes even higher meeting attendance.
> If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please email Bob Watrel
Sponsorship Levels
Platinum Sponsor — $1000
- Two complimentary registrations
- Recognition at banquet
- Logo on conference website
- Table for use at registration area
Gold Sponsor — $500
- One complimentary registration
- Logo on conference website
- Table for use at registration area
Silver Sponsor — $250
- Logo on conference website
- Signboard display at registration area
Contacts
- Conference Coordinator — Bob Watrel
- Field Trips
- 7 Billion Years Ago to the Space Age — Darrell Napton
- Urban Growth in the Heartland: Sioux Falls Past, Present, and Future — Bob Watrel
- Food/beverage — Mary Ward
- GeoBowl — Kim Johnson Maier and Mason Maimaitijiang
- Student Paper Competitions — Hankui Zhang
- Paper and Poster Session information — George White and Bruce Millett
- Student Paper/Poster Competitions — Hankui Zhang
- GPRM Regional Chair — Bob Watrel, Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, South Dakota State University