GIS Education Community Blog

Big Bucks: Examining the 10 Most Expensive Streets in the USA with the Spatial Perspective and ArcGIS Online

tbaker — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:32:00 GMT

What factors influence how expensive it is to rent or to buy a house in a community? What areas of your own community are more expensive to rent or buy a house? Why? What factors influence how expensive it is to rent an office in a community? These questions and others are explored in a new activity in the ArcLessons library that uses the spatial perspective and ArcGIS Online for examining the ten most expensive streets in the USA. The activities are supported by a series of 6 videos on the YouTube Esri Education Team Channel, beginning here.

The activity includes an ArcGIS Online set of map layers and slides spatially depicting the 10 most expensive streets, created from data reported by MarketWatch in the Wall Street Journal, based on the cost per square foot for office space. Describe three similarities and three differences that you notice in the 10 ground photographs. Which of the streets, based on the photographs, is most appealing to you if you were looking for office space, and why? After changing the basemap to a satellite image, describe these three neighborhoods.

Next, examine the map layers depicting population density, median age, and median net worth in the first three neighborhoods. Do the variables shown on these map layers appear to influence the cost of renting office space? If so, how, and why? Next, read the article The Ten Most Expensive Streets in the U.S.

Do you think that the price per square foot is an adequate measure to determine if a street is expensive? What other measures do you think would be useful? Where do you think the 10 most expensive streets were in 1900, and where do you think they will be in 2050? Now for my favorite parts of the lesson: First, write your own question about the 10 most expensive streets, and answer it! Second, zoom to your own community. What patterns of population density, median age, and median net worth exist close to home? Why do these patterns exist in your community, and how do the patterns change as you change the scale? How do you think these patterns will change over the next 20 years? What other variables do you think would be helpful to understand the price of office space? Using the Add Data button, add them to your map and describe the patterns that you uncover.

If time allows, investigate the price of office space in specific areas of your community and compare those prices to a satellite image, population density, median age, and median net worth. Create a 5 minute presentation containing 5 slides that tells your story and save it in ArcGIS Online. Give that presentation to your class.

This activity is aimed at university level but it could be used at the upper secondary level. It can be used as an independent assigned activity to students or in a whole-class discussion format. The activity’s 30 questions require an estimated two to three hours. No previous experience with GIS is necessary but this activity does rely heavily on spatial thinking and the geographic perspective. It can be run in a lab setting or with 1 computer with a projector, but requires no software other than a web browser.

How have these WebGIS maps and the spatial perspective helped you to understand the patterns of office space cost?

- Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager

Esri Insider Blog Features GIS in Education

tbaker — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:10:00 GMT

Esri's "Insider Blog" has just published a two-part blog on Esri Education programs, its history and future through a series of interviews with Esri Education Director David DiBiase.

During the interviews with Esri's Matt Artz, David describes how a relatively small team has and will continue to improve education through leveraging ArcGIS across a U.S. educational system of nearly 75 million people and a constantly expanding international audience.

Read the interviews at:

Fun with GIS #107: Terrain Profiles

tbaker — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:28:00 GMT

Terrain profiles have teaching power! Draw a line on the map, and get a profile of the elevation change. Cool! The EdCommunity WebMapping page includes a link to a Flex-based tool that educators have used successfully for months. Click and hold to draw a line, let go … magic! It even works underwater! (Note Hawaii, below.) And if you wander your cursor along the profile, it shows your position on the map. Nifty! (Try mapping out a local run or bike ride!)

Now, there's another version to explore. This is a Javascript-based tool, so it works on a tablet. Click the Measure tool, set measurement units, click to start, double-click to stop. (And -- YAY! -- this version draws lines in a Great Circle Route.) Here it is on an iPad.

These and the other apps on the EdCommunity WebMapping page are powerful tools for helping students of all ages understand a variety of concepts and skills. Many such apps are carefully documented and ready for others to modify as desired. For educators wondering about GIS and STEM, a quick stroll through the ArcGIS Galleries should prove that there are endless opportunities for people with GIS knowledge, contextual background, and technical skills.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager

Earth Quiz: 20 Questions about Our Planet Using ArcGIS Online

tbaker — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:47:00 GMT

Take a look at this image. Which waterfall is shown in this image? What clues exist on the landscape to help you choose among the three options listed?

Where is this glaciated terrain located?

Examining maps and imagery seems to be an engaging activity for many people, young and old, all around the world. Consider the number of maps and images delivered daily by web GIS servers. I contend that the number requested for people who simply enjoy looking at the Earth compares favorably to the number served for wayfinding and research purposes. This interest can be effectively taken advantage in education by engaging students in a series of images or maps as a quiz or a contest. At the Esri User Conference each year, the “Where in the World” sets of imagery on display always attract a crowd.

For nearly 20 years, I have frequently used map and image quizzes in classes I have taught and presentations I have conducted for geography, environmental studies, earth science, and other classes. These quizzes can be easily created and effectively used through the use of ArcGIS Online. Using ArcGIS Online’s presentation mode, for example, I created a 20-question Earth quiz. This quiz includes the images shown above as well as waterfalls, glaciers, deserts, rainforests, volcanoes, cities, and much more.

You can view the quiz in presentation mode.

More importantly, you can also run it inside ArcGIS Explorer Online so that you will be able to change the scale and basemaps, posing and answering questions, and fostering deeper inquiry into places and the processes at work behind those places.

For example, when you engage your students in discussing glaciation using the above slide, you can zoom in to examine south versus north facing slopes and the amount of snow cover on each. You can zoom out until someone recognizes the location. Then you can discuss the effect of latitude and altitude on glaciation. You can change the basemap to topographic to determine the height of the mountains and the depth of the valleys and determine slopes. You can add land cover, climate, and population map layers and discuss how each is affected by the presence of these glaciated mountains along the west coast of this country. Thus, these are by no means static “slides” and calling them slides is really a misnomer.

Even better, instructors can create their own quizzes focused on other processes, specific themes, specific regions, or their own community. Consider a quiz-based presentation focused on a community issue such as an area proposed for rezoning, or a process such as river meanders, erosion, and sedimentation.

Well, how did you score on the 20-question Earth Quiz? How might you use the idea of an Earth Quiz in your own instruction? How might you use ArcGIS Online in your own instruction?

- Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager

Flipping It: An Instructional Alternative for GIS in the Class

tbaker — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:28:00 GMT

A few years ago a couple of Colorado chemistry teachers realized that they were spending incredible amounts of time preparing make-up work and documenting the day’s instruction for students who were out sick. To help curb this time problem, they began recording their instruction and placing instructional video (e.g. narrated PowerPoint), class exercises, interactive simulations and other materials online every day – as a regular component of their instructional preparations. What they found was that not only did the resources help the absent student but also students who attended class leveraged the online materials as an opportunity to review. Today, the art and practice of the flipped classroom has evolved. With the day’s instruction shifted to an online format for evening study by students, the 45-minute class period has opened up, allowing time for collaborative projects, deeper, open-ended investigations, or concentrated study of a particularly sticky topic. The Kahn Academy is one popular implementation of pre-built materials, potentially useful for a flipped learning environment.

With the advent of a variety of web GIS tools (like ArcGIS Online) and an explosion of existing instructional video on basic GIS activities (YouTube or ArcGIS videos), the flipped classroom may be a great approach.

While creating new instructional video can be very time-consuming, carefully plotting out the best way to explain a concept, the best examples, and the right formative assessment, the payoffs can be huge (best practices: meta-analysis and practical tips). Teachers using flipped models of instruction report having more time to spend directly responding to students, stronger levels of student engagement, and more time for projects. What a great opportunity to use GIS to launch a class wide investigation of any number of environmental issues or sociological studies. ArcGIS Online can be used to both teach basic concepts in the evening and serve as the collaborative focal point during the day. So whether you’re teaching a STEM subject, geography, or anything else, consider trying a flipped classroom – even for part of the instructional period and explore where you and GIS can take your students.

- Tom Baker, Esri Education Manager

Fun with GIS #106: Data and Diplomas

tbaker — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:13:00 GMT

Data and more data! It's a challenge for today's students, educators, administrators, and policy makers alike. The US Government just unveiled a new portal for education data. I spent some time browsing, and found a set of data I'd like to see in a map with a chart: high school graduation rates.

As an educator, I might push this data into a shapefile and post it for students to use, or ask them to go through the exercise. The first route maximizes time for analysis, the S and M elements in STEM; the second route maximizes development of the T and E in STEM. Either way, it's a benefit.

I used the same data enhancement process described in a previous blog. There is a basic US states shapefile available online for enhancement. I downloaded the graduation data, and carefully pushed it into the basic shapefile. I signed onto ArcGIS Online, pushed up my new data, made a map, and customized the popup. Here's the result, as displayed in my iPad.

(Click the map to view it online)

Students today are facing exploding universes of data, and they need to learn how to make decisions about its quality, its relevance, the ways it can be employed, and what it means. They need frequent practice with these tasks. It needs to become second nature if they are going to be good problem solvers in the years ahead.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager

Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) Report: Ties to GIS Education

tbaker — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:02:00 GMT

Several documents over the past 20 years have played key roles in shaping GIS in education and remain excellent resources for making the case why the work of the GIS education community is necessary. One of the first and one of my personal favorites was the U.S. Secretary of Labor’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) report. This report identified that the “task of learning is the real work of today, whether at school, in the university, on the job…” (1991, page 5). SCANS then stated (1992) that core subjects must be taught and learned “in context.” “In context” means learning content while solving realistic problems. Students are learning software, cartography, and GIS skills while using GIS to study world biomes, a regional watershed, or local community traffic, but they are also learning content.

SCANS identified five competencies important for future work success: Resources, interpersonal, information, systems, and technology. “Resources” include identifying, organizing, planning, and allocating, while “interpersonal” means working with others in a diverse team. “Information” includes interpreting and communicating, and “systems” include understanding complex interrelationships. “Technology” is identified as working with, selecting, and applying technologies, and this too is fundamental to the work done with GIS. When we teach with GIS or about GIS, we typically use multimedia software and hardware, desktop and cloud tasks and data, smartphones and GPS, field probes and sensors, different operating systems, databases, data in many formats, spreadsheets, and scanners, just to name a few technologies, all in an applied fashion.

The SCANS report can be effectively used as a means of communicating why it is vital that GIS education must continue. Moreover, it can help justify the case why GIS in education must increase in the disciplines where it is already established and spread to those that are not fully engaging with it. The GIS education community must make clear and well known the ties between our work and the SCANS report. Given the escalation in the importance of such critical issues as food, natural hazards, population, biodiversity, water, and energy in our world, spatial analysis through GIS is even more relevant to education than when these reports were written 20 years ago.

How might you use the SCANS report to communicate the importance of your work in GIS education and gain support for that work?

-Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager

Bibliography
U.S. Department of Labor Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. 1991. What Work Requires of Schools. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Labor.
U.S. Department of Labor Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. 1992. Learning a Living: A Blueprint for High Performance. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Labor.

Fun with GIS #105: Ecoregions, Drought, and iPad

tbaker — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:05:00 GMT

A year ago, I wrote a blog about using ArcGIS Online to explore ecoregions, and doing it on an iPad, in addition to a regular computer. I want to enhance the map by adding another key layer: drought status. I'm interested in learning which ecoregions face a near-term issue.

The U.S. government runs a portal about drought, with maps, data, news, and links. But what if you just want to see drought data added into your ecoregion map? Think back to another recent blog entry that walked through finding and adding special services. This time, we need to find some drought data. By searching the information, links, and applications at the drought portal, I found the National Climate Data Center's web service for the Palmer Drought Severity Index. See the combined map.

Finally, since the two color layers compete, I used the idea from another blog entry to create a three-panel map, showing a location by terrain, drought, and ecoregion. And all of this can be done on an iPad, in addition to a regular computer. Whether working with a regular computer or a mobile device, and long-term or short-term data, and cultural or physical data, making these analytical maps with disparate resources helps students build critical content knowledge and technical skills that they can use for solving problems. This is why GIS is important in STEM education and beyond.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager

Fun with GIS #104: Building Data Inside ArcGIS Online

tbaker — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:17:00 GMT

Need an easy way to make a point data file within ArcGIS Online, doing data entry within the map? This five-minute video (silent but annotated) shows how to turn a simple two-line text file into a way to add data points with attributes to your map.

Generally, mapping and classifying a set of points with attributes is easier to do by generating your complete data table as a spreadsheet first, and then mapping the completed spreadsheet, but sometimes you need a different workflow. (If you are reconstructing data from a field trip or outing after the fact, this is one way to do it.) The movie shows how you can start with a small data set, and expand the number of records over time, and classify them.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager

Open-Ended Tools, Open-Ended Curricula

tbaker — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:58:00 GMT

I recently wrote about the connections between ePortfolios, innovative technologies, and the use of GIS in education, beginning with an interview with English professor and Executive Director of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), Dr. Trent Batson. Besides believing in innovative technology as a vehicle for transforming how education is designed, Dr. Batson had these intriguing things to say about pedagogy:

“Pedagogy is the wrong term for educators to be using regarding higher education for two reasons: it refers to teaching and therefore implies a teaching-centered approach to education, and, secondly, it refers to teaching children, not adults. It's also a loaded term, associated with the behaviorist model that education has unwittingly perpetuated long after it fell out of favor with learning researchers.“

Behaviorism is a developmental theory that measures observable behaviors produced by a learner’s response to stimuli, and one reason for Batson’s statement may be that behaviorism is often associated with rote memorization and drill-and-practice. While these methods have some utility in education, they are often cited as the least effective ways to teach and learn. By contrast, learner-centered approaches to education have gained favor following pioneering work from Rogers, Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bloom, who showed that students actively construct their own learning.

Because GIS was created to be a problem-solving toolkit, it meshes well with problem-based learning and experiential learning that adhere to the learner-centered model. How can we foster this in the GIS based curricula that we develop through such venues as Esri Press, ArcLessons, YouTube Channel, and in our blog posts? We seek to provide hands-on, engaging, sound content that fosters skills, that addresses important issues, and that adheres to curricular content standards at the primary and secondary level and the Geospatial Technology Competency Model and to other vetted higher education models. However, none of these curricular pieces are intended to be the final destination. Rather, we always aim for these curricular pieces to spark ideas, to foster inquiry, to spur further investigations. To be sure, it is often valuable to start one’s journey in GIS education or with a particular task such as geocoding with a lesson that someone else has written. However, don’t get stuck there. If you as the instructor or one of your students wants to change scales, regions, classification, variables, or analytical techniques in these lessons, by all means, change them. Because GIS is an open-ended tool, it would be a shame if the lessons or activities were looked upon as closed!

One of my all-time favorite moments as an educator came while I was examining ethnicity, median age, and other demographic variables by neighborhood in Denver with a classroom of middle school students using GIS. After a few students said, “what if we looked at New Mexico?” for the rest of the class period, the students were totally driving the inquiry, changing the location and next, even changing the variables! Curiously, since the students weren’t quite used to “driving”, they at first glanced at me often for approval. After I made certain that this was welcomed, the students blazed new ground. We were in terra incognita, outside the “box” of the lesson.

What are ways that you typically modify existing GIS-based curricula? What can we do on the Esri education team to provide you with the curricular pieces that would best foster a learner-centered approach?

-Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager

Esri at BETT 2012 ( #BETT2012 )

tbaker — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:43:00 GMT

BETT - Over 30,000 education professions will review educational technology solutions and resources from around the world at London's Olympia Center, January 11-14.

Visit education representatives from Esri and Esri UK at this year's exposition at booth B80 (locator) to learn more about how ArcGIS, ArcGIS Online, and Digital Worlds are used at all levels of education. You can also explore the ArcGIS Online World Geography sampler assembled for the BETT Expo.

Learn more about BETT and plan to attend.

Fun with GIS #103: World Bank Data on ArcGIS Online

tbaker — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:03:00 GMT

Great world-level maps. That's what you'll find in the package of maps on ArcGIS Online which feature World Bank data. Each map has hidden layers of content, and each map has time-series data that is great for supporting deep investigations.

If you want to add the data into your own map, though, it takes a little work to find the map services and engage them properly. A new ArcLesson video (silent, six minutes long) walks you through the process.

The procedure shown is also useful for accessing other jewels of data that you want to incorporate in your own maps. Look for opportunities to use in your own maps some of the great layers you see in maps featured on ArcGIS Online. Check it out!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager

GIS, Presentations, and the “Education Bubble”

tbaker — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:20:00 GMT

Over the past year, several articles were written and presentations were given about the “education bubble.” Definitions of the bubble vary, but the articles made the case that unlike in the past, many of today’s students are not seeing a sufficient return on their university investment in terms of relevant workforce skills, to the extent that they were not being able to secure a job upon graduation or even to repay their student loans. One of the articles I found particularly interesting was an interview with English professor and Executive Director of the Association for Authentic, Experiential, and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), Dr. Trent Batson.

Dr. Batson has designed, implemented, and promoted instructional technology at the University of Rhode Island and at MIT. He believes that innovative uses of educational technology, such as electronic portfolios, or “ePortfolios” can contribute to the learning experience, may help students to consider the higher education investment worthwhile, and will help “keep education relevant.”

All of us on the Esri education team believe that teaching and learning with GIS is an innovative use of a technology that has already transformed decision-making and entire organizations over the past 40 years. GIS provides a context for critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and in-demand technical, discipline-specific, and organizational competencies recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. Moreover, it also fits in well with Dr. Batson’s notions of effective ePortfolios. Batson states that ePortfolios contribute nothing by themselves—they only are worthwhile if their capabilities help faculty redesign their courses so that students can become active learners. Over the years, I have observed that it is very difficult to remain passive when using GIS in an educational setting. Furthermore, consider the following image, taken from a recent presentation I gave using ArcGIS Explorer Online:

Presentations using ArcGIS and ArcGIS Explorer Online help students tell stories, investigate, and explain. ArcGIS Explorer Online presentations can be saved, shared, and returned to later, taking advantage of the “elapsed” time that Dr. Batson claims is valuable. ArcGIS Online presentations are not static; if peers or the instructor ask questions during the presentation, the student can change symbology, scale, region, add or subtract variables, reclassify, and perform other tasks that make the presentation a learning experience for everyone. Indeed, the whole notion of presentation is transformed, becoming an interactive and creative experience, throwing into question even the appropriateness of the term “presentation.” These interactive experiences are therefore a redesign of instruction favored by Batson and others.

Do you agree that teaching and learning with GIS aligns well with innovative uses of technology as defined by Batson? Do you believe that educational GIS provides critically-needed skills for students while in school and upon graduation? How can we as a GIS community leverage research by Batson and others to promote and expand GIS throughout all levels of education?

- Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager

Geoadventure at the British Library: Illuminated Manuscripts and a Matthew Paris Map Story

tbaker — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:38:00 GMT

On a recent trip to London, the British Library beckoned. It was an unknown part of the landscape and it offered an enticing exhibit, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination. A visit was in order and the experience was enlightening.

I had seen examples of illustrated manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells, and other documents, but always as a singular display or minor components of an exhibition. This was/is (runs through March 13, 2012) something beyond comparison with literally scores of books and other documents on display. The items present span centuries with the majority created before the rise of printing in the late 15th century.

Here are religious, historical, legal, and documentary materials that took months to years to craft…one in the collection noted it was one person’s work of 25 years. These are combinations of painstaking manuscripting and exquisite graphical rendering. They are incredible works of art and information…and storytelling.

One particular item captivated me. I spent nearly an hour exploring it in its under glass 13th century parchment form and its 21st century digital embodiment at a nearby computer kiosk. It will probably come as no surprise, this is a map.

This 1250 map, in seven economical pages, is a pilgrim’s Itinerary from London to Jerusalem by 13th century monk, chronicler, and cartographer, Matthew Paris. The page-sized “linear” map segments span the land geography that covers a journey of some 2,500 miles of land and sea travel. It is broken into “short” point A to B land segments, alternate routes are offered where appropriate, and landscape features such as mountains and water, political boundaries, and other pertinent points of interest to a Christian traveler (including churches and safe strongholds) are displayed. The series uses different scales with the richest graphical and annotative detail devoted to the destination, Jerusalem, and other key Middle Eastern cities leading to it. My favorite map section covers southern Italy. It uses inset parchment map flaps for greater detail for probable traveler visits to Rome and possible side trips to Sicily.

In addition to the content in this 13th century equivalent of a AAA TripTik, I was interested to know that this map was of a trip Matthew Paris hadn’t taken. With the exception of a year in Norway and visits to royal court in London, Paris was at the Abbey of St Albans from 1217 until his death in 1259. He was a synthesizer and created this map from information gleaned from travelers and other credible sources—in essence the best geographic data of the day organized with the purpose of helping get pilgrim travelers safely to a sacred destination.

I was unable to find out how many copies of this parchment map series were produced, but in a pre-printing age it is safe to assume it was few at best. As the Library’s display noted, among the viewers of the finished work were probably fellow monks who also would never take the actual journey. However, in some ways, they didn’t need to as the virtual one supplied by the map document and their own religious faith and secular knowledge would easily transport them along the way from London to Jerusalem.

One mission of a map back then is the same as today—communication. In the case of this Paris map, with its geographic core and its transcendent context, it permitted the viewers to go beyond what was penned and fashion their own deeper personal version of the map story…and it still does today.

View some of the map segments held at the British Library:
• British Isles except Ireland
• Southern England and Northern France
• Northern Italy
• Damascus to Jerusalem

- George Dailey, Esri Education Program

Sources: Decorative royalty-free letter G from www.fromoldbooks.org. Zoomable image from the British Library’s Online Gallery.

Fun with GIS #102: Election Season Begins!

tbaker — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:21:00 GMT

HNY! It's election year! And there's a fabulous new map story to explore!

For social studies educators, this is a huge opportunity to get your students working with online maps. Match the primary activities with what you can learn about each state through the "USA Demographics for Schools" map as well.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Esri Education Manager