PROFESSOR JASON VANHORN
GIS
A NEW KIND OF MAPPING 16 VERGE
BY ALLISON GRAFF Two words: zombie apocalypse. Two more words: Calvin College. No, you can’t major in zombies here, and no, you probably won’t be talking about them in class unless the television show, The Walking Dead, is a topic of discussion in a media criticism course. And you probably won’t witness a zombie apocalypse on campus unless your dorm chooses that theme for Chaos Day. So what do zombies have to do with Calvin? You probably won’t believe us when we tell you, but here it is: A zombie apocalypse was the topic of one student’s digital mapping project in a course called “Introduction to Geographic Information Systems.” The student used public data on proximity to food and water in Grand Rapids to map out where you should hide in the event of a zombie apocalypse.