NATIONAL SURVEYORS WEEK HISTORY
President Ronald Reagan proclaimed National Surveyors Week on February 13, 1984.
National Surveyors Week every year starts with the third Sunday in March and aims to educate the public through classroom contact, media, and visible public service.
Surveying has advanced civilization since the beginning of recorded history. When cities grow, planning is necessary for most earth-bound projects. The building of the Great Pyramid at Giza in 2700 BC is one of the first examples in the history of land surveying. Surveying is also used in transport, communications, mapping, and the definition of legal boundaries for land ownership. Many scientific disciplines use this important tool for research, too.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 43,400 surveyors in the United States. Surveyors are skilled or familiar with several fields. Some of those fields include geometry, trigonometry, regression analysis, physics, engineering, meteorology, programming languages, and the law. While the basics of surveying are the same, the tools of surveying today use more technology than they once used. Drones and lasers have replaced much of the telescope-on-a-tripod work. Remote sensing and satellite imagery continue to improve and become cheaper, allowing more commonplace use. One prominent new technology includes three-dimensional (3D) scanning.
HOW TO OBSERVE #NationalSurveyorsWeek
- Learn about surveying careers.
- Share your experiences as a surveyor.
- Mentor someone.
- Invite an engineering firm to speak to your group or class.
- Host a brown-bag lunch and have a surveyor speak at the lunch.
- Visit www.nsps.us.com or Follow on Facebook
- Follow on Social Media with #NationalSurveyorsWeek.
