GIS Education Community Blog

Investigating Current Hazard Events in ArcGIS Explorer: Landslides

tbaker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:30:00 GMT

One of the earliest topics that researchers and educators tackled with GIS was natural hazards, because of their multi-disciplinary nature, and because hazards data were readily available in formats easily ingested by GIS software. Fifteen years later, hazards data are more easily used immediately after a hazardous event than ever before.

On 11 October 2009, a landslide in Washington occurred, burying a state highway at least 20 feet deep for one-half mile, diverting a river, and damaging homes in Nile. Later that same week, my colleagues and I used the event in a multi-day GIS workshop for attendees at the Geological Society of America conference not far away, in Portland, Oregon. My colleague georegistered a landslide map from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), I uploaded it to ArcGIS Online, and our class brought the layer package into ArcGIS Explorer to analyze it in 3-D.

An article in the Seattle Times stated that the Washington DNR warned the gravel pit operators four years earlier that the operation might be destabilizing a portion of the slope. However, a Yakima geotechnical engineer, who conducted a slope analysis for the gravel pit operators, said the gravel mine was too small to have triggered the massive slides. We used the event to set up a classroom debate, and spatial analysis and GIS were used as evidence by those on both sides of the debate. After further examination, my colleague, a geologist by training, noticed that landslide scars seemed to be located along the valley to the northwest of the current slide. Did a fault underlie this entire valley, the route of Highway 410? As a class, we visited the Washington DNR web site, downloaded the faults layer, and overlaid it in ArcGIS Explorer, which confirmed our hypothesis about the fault’s existence. I packaged up these layers and saved them to ArcLessons so that you can use them right away.

This simple but effective project illustrates that GIS is perfectly suited to investigate current events and foster inquiry.

--Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager.

K-12 Students in Arkansas Get Access to ESRI GIS Technology

tbaker — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:10:00 GMT

With the recent signing of a statewide license, all 266 school districts in Arkansas now have access to ESRI’s full complement of geographic information system (GIS) technology. The software is available for both administrative and classroom use.

Jim Boardman, assistant commissioner for research and technology at the Arkansas Department of Education, says, "This is an important step in providing educational opportunities for our students to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Learning GIS gives students important skills that can be applied in a wide range of occupations."

For the past several years, high school students in Arkansas have had the chance to use GIS through the EAST Initiative, an independent, secondary school program that encourages the use of advanced technologies to develop solutions for community-related service projects. EAST originated in Arkansas more than 10 years ago, and the program has spread to other states.

"Through our longtime support of GIS projects in Arkansas high schools, we have developed a close relationship with the Arkansas Department of Education. We will be working with the department to help facilitate its implementation of the technology in schools across the state," says Matt Dozier, president of the EAST Initiative.

The Arkansas Department of Education plans a comprehensive program to introduce GIS to the state’s students, teachers, and administrators. A Web site will be set up to exchange information, post announcements, answer questions, and manage GIS software distribution. ESRI’s Virtual Campus will be used extensively to introduce students to GIS concepts and applications, and the EAST Initiative will provide administrative, instructional, and technical support.

Press Release.

Fun with GIS #32: It's All in the Questions

tbaker — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:00:00 GMT

My last two blogs have been about GIS as a "powertool for STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] education" or GIS as an analytical tool for STEM. As exciting as it is to work with powerful tools and skilled users, it's even more enjoyable to watch a good teacher in action, and see how students dive in when given a good opportunity. For GIS Day, I have had the privilege of visiting some classes participating in the Virginia Geospatial Semester. I watched one teacher work with two different classes. (I'll call the teacher "Jane.")

Jane's task for the students was pretty straight-forward: "You're trying to help a doctor who is moving into a nearby state (Pennsylvania), working with two age groups: 5-17 and 65 and over. You need to find the counties with the 'optimal number' of potential patients. You need to make two maps that engage ratios, make your decisions, generate a layout, post it electronically, and write a paragraph explaining your choices and selection." That was about as much instruction as Jane gave.

It was fabulous! The students had enough just skills to tackle each part of this, on their own, but it was still a stretch. In making the maps and doing the analyses, they wrestled with different combinations of fields. They employed different strategies for evaluating "optimal" -- queries, manual selection and comparison, and swiping to seek most glaring color schemes.

Working in pairs -- and being 12th graders -- they talked, and posed questions, to each other and to Jane. Jane, in turn, asked them questions, luring them to explore, explain, analyze, and synthesize. She listened, sometimes providing a bit of info, sometimes asking a specific question. At the end, a handful of teams got up to present their selections and strategies.

Almost everyone was intensely engaged throughout. (With seniors, there's often "that 5-10%.") They wrestled with the content, a raft of skills, and some pretty compelling math, then communicated their findings. And all the way thru, the simple questions led them further, step by step, different questions for different students.

Good tools like GIS are fun to work with. Good teachers can take even basic ideas, present them enticingly like a jungle gym or ropes course, give some general guidance, and let the students wrestle with the content. This affords individual attention and customized assistance. But it tests a teacher's ability to "cope with divergence." And, since the tools, skills, and content are truly infinite in scope, the questions never end, so it provides a chance to model the lifelong learner. It doesn't have to be rocket science, either … it's just incredibly powerful, in the right hands.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Co-Manager, ESRI Schools Program

European Capital Cities and ArcGIS Explorer

tbaker — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:06:00 GMT

In honor of Geography Awareness Week and its European theme, I built a small ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) project focused on European capital cities….and best of all it’s here for you to download.

In a nutshell, I did the following:

1. A little Web research to track down the names of all European capital cities (yes, I knew most but…)

2. To preserve my research sources, I created a folder in my AGX project and created a couple of Links to the CIA Factbook and Nations Online.

3. I created a folder into which I placed my city locations.

4. Using the Find function, I pinpointed the array of Eurocapitals, adding each of them to the map, placing them into my cities folder, and arranging them in alphabetic sequence.

5. Selecting all of the cities, I changed their appearance—a new symbol and symbol size.

6. For each city, I modified the associated Note by editing the Popup title as desired and adding a Wikipedia link for each.

7. I added another folder to my project called “Places to See” where I can drop interesting locations within these cities that I might like to visit. So far, I’ve only added one location in the city of Lisbon.

8. I saved my map and have now shared it with you.

Here’s a snapshot of my work.

Things for you to do:

1. Download and launch the Europe.nmf using AGX.

2. Learn about these important places by clicking on their symbols and examining the Wikipedia content.

3. Change the Basemap to Streets and zoom into individual city locations, explore, and potentially create point notes of places to see like “Greenwich Park” just outside London and spot the imaginary line feature (Prime Meridian) passing through it.

4. Add hi-resolution city imagery by using Add Content > ArcGIS Online > Search = “World Ikonos” > Select the July 9 entry > Click Open in ArcGIS > Open.

5. Now, zoom to the city of choice and explore more. Here is a special place I saw in Lisbon last April. The screenshot also plays between the Streets layer and the new high-res imagery using the Swipe tool.

6. Be sure to save your project. It’s yours now.

Continue growing your geographic capabilities and use of GIS. Happy Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day…which, by the way, is any day.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager

Fun with GIS #31: GIS = Analyzing STEM

tbaker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:00:00 GMT

My blog last week was about GIS as a "powertool for STEM education." In preparing for GIS Day, Geography Awareness Week, and the Virginia STEM Education Conference, and bearing in mind the recently released federal funds for education known as "Race to the Top", I decided to explore Virginia's school districts.

The general challenge in STEM education is for students to be problem solvers using technology … to see a situation, identify a question, explore it scientifically, analyze it mathematically, and develop a model that explains the topic or solves a question. My question was a simple one: What is the population covered by the different school districts in Virginia?

With a question established, I sought a relevant data set and evaluated it for trustworthiness. I decided on Census tract population density from 2008, in ESRI's Data & Maps for ArcGIS 9.3.1. I chose a classification scheme and symbology, projected the display to reduce spatial distortion, and added a background context layer from ArcGIS Online. Finally, I overlaid the map with school district boundaries, after selecting Virginia's from a national set and clipping off the water areas.

In less than a second, even with a flash glimpse of a re-sampled image, you should be able to see a pretty striking pattern. There are pockets of high density and broad swatches of lower, even minimal density. This leads instantly to a whole set of new questions: Does the school-age density map look the same? Which areas are expected to grow the most? What issues vary in significance for districts with higher versus lower population density? What differences in opportunities exist for students, or educators, because of population? Does graduation rate vary with population? What environmental characteristics affect students in one zone versus another?

Students sometimes struggle to generate questions about a topic. When I was teaching, it seemed to me that, if they couldn't ask a good question, they just didn't have a context within which to fit the subject. When we pulled out maps and began exploring, and especially when we began working with data and analyzing it, the questions flowed in a torrent. Class periods spent exploring and analyzing these questions led to a strong grasp of content.

Educators who use GIS well have been doing "STEM education" for a long time, even in classes that may not have had one of the STEM words in the title. Think of how much STEM education could happen if educators were to engage GIS across the grade levels and subject areas. Think how engaged and prepared our students could be!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, Co-Manager, ESRI Schools Program

Geography Awareness Week 2009!

tbaker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:33:00 GMT

Since 1888, the National Geographic Society has worked to build and spread geographic knowledge. Geography Awareness Week began in 1987 as a celebration of the importance of geography in our lives. Every year, National Geographic creates a set of activities for teachers to use with their students and their families to celebrate geography. These activities can be found on the Geography Action Web site. In 2006, National Geographic began a five-year campaign, entitled My Wonderful World, to help people experience the power of geography.

What can I do this week to celebrate Geography?

Explore the ESRI Geography Awareness site and learn how GIS enhances geographic inquiry
Learn how you can become or connect to a GeoMentor
Discover a GIS lesson at ArcLessons for your classroom
Learn how others use GIS in schools, universities, libraries, museums, and after school

ArcGIS Server in Higher Education videos

tbaker — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:45:00 GMT

How do you learn best? Some of us sit down and start reading at the beginning of a detailed manual and make our way slowly through the details until we reach the end of the documentation having achieved expertise in that topic. Some of us prefer to get a higher level, conceptual view of the rough outline before we delve into the details. If you are a member of the latter group of learners, consider checking out some videos I made about ArcGIS Server in Higher Education. Three short videos have been posted on the Instructional Materials Tab under GIS Video Tutorials that are meant to assist faculty in teaching with ArcGIS Server.

ArcGIS Server provides a way to access and share your GIS data beyond the desktop. Check out the extensive possibilities that Server can provide to enhance your teaching and assist your students in learning with and about GIS.

- Toni Fisher, Higher Education Manager, ESRI

Mapping the Distribution of Golf Courses in ArcMap

tbaker — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:00 GMT

My dad golfed over 200 different courses over a 30 year span. Sadly, his skills did not transfer to me, though I acknowledge in a movie I filmed on the driving range [TouTube video] that golfing is a spatial sport. Class discussions about golf courses can include debates about their pros and cons, water resources, land use, permeable surfaces, wildlife habitat, tourism impacts, distances and angles, and much more.

What is the spatial distribution of golf courses in the USA? I found a golf course layer package on ArcGIS Online that I brought into ArcMap. After adding states and countries map layers, I was not surprised to find the high density in California, the northeast, and north central. However, I found a surprising number in Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, and Montana’s clusters were surprising to me.

I packaged up these layers and saved them to ArcLessons so that you can use them right away.

Work with GIS fosters critical thinking skills, including questioning data—where it came from, why and when it was created, and other questions. After mapping golf courses, I noticed obvious gaps—no courses in Alaska and only one in Wyoming. I then checked private companies (Golflink and others) and organizations (the Wyoming Tourism Council), and found anywhere from 50 to 70 golf courses listed for Wyoming, and at least 15 in Alaska. I also have a difficult time believing that the Minnesota-South Dakota and Iowa-Missouri state boundaries have the impact that the map indicates on the distribution of golf courses. If most of the golf course data indeed came from the Geographic Names Information System, these only include golf course names that appear on USGS topographic maps. That most USGS topographic maps are dated and that many golf courses are simply not on topographic maps might explain some of these gaps. Check your data sources. Today, with web sites hosting spatial data rapidly expanding, it is more important than ever to understand your data—its benefits but also its limitations.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

ArcGIS Explorer Blog: Show us your geography and GIS!

tbaker — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Next week starts Geography Awareness Week. And next Wednesday, November 18, is GIS Day. So we'd like you to show us your geography and GIS! Learn more at the ArcGIS Explorer Blog.

We're ready to highlight your geographic and GIS activities using ArcGIS Explorer. Send us your screenshots, maps or layer files, or a brief write-up, and we'll feature it here in a future blog post. Send all submissions to bszukalski@esri.com

GIS Day provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

Launched in 1987 by presidential proclamation, Geography Awareness Week is held the third week of each November, promoting the importance of geography education in the United States.

If you're new to ArcGIS Explorer you can get more information and download it for free from the ArcGIS Explorer product home page or the ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center.

ArcGIS Explorer and Overlays and Craters…Oh My!

tbaker — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:33:00 GMT

The ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) Resource Center is a great place to discover tips, tricks, and fun things you can do with AGX. I was touring the AGX blog and ran across a compelling post—Creating cool text and titles for your ArcGIS Explorer presentations, by Bernie Szukalski of the Explorer Team.

It is a good piece on tying multiple technologies together to tackle a task—here enhancing the native capacities of AGX with some multimedia tools to communicate a message in a different way.

So, I decided to try this mini-lesson myself. I have begun working toward a new project on impact craters on the heels of further news of possibly the largest impact crater on Earth—Shiva (more on Shiva).

Moving between PowerPoint, Paint Shop Pro, and AGX I crafted the title of the new presentation. To top it off, I added a global database of known craters for…you guessed it…greater impact! Here’s my version of Bernie’s work.

Stay tuned for more on my impact crater project, including where you can find the data and more.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager

Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and …….. Flickr? Oh My!

tbaker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT

Among its many powerful features, ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) can display GeoRSS data – a data stream containing geography and attribute information. One of the most compelling features of GeoRSS is it’s ability to be readily created, allowing websites to display real-time or near real-time data. In AGX, when you link to GeoRSS data, you can even specify how often the data update.

To load GeoRSS data in AGX, use the Add Content Menu, and select GIS Services.

Click New Server Connection.

Set the Server Type to GeoRSS and copy one of the example GeoRSS URLs below into the Server field. Press Next.

USGS M2.5+ Earthquakes (last 7 days) - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M2.5.xml
USGS M5+ Earthquakes (last 7 days) - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M5.xml
Pacific Tsunami Warnings -http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/feeds/ptwc_rss_pacific.xml
Indian Ocean Tsunami Warnings - http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/feeds/ptwc_rss_indian.xml

AGX will then connect to your GeoRSS feed and verify the data is readable. You will be prompted to select a service refresh option: a specified time interval or at start-up. For most data that doesn't rapidly change, refreshing at start-up should work just fine.

Note that clicking on a GeoRSS symbol on the AGX map pulls up a window that contains the web page referenced by the specific GeoRSS item.

After the data displays on your map, you can change the Symbols (right-click on the GeoRSS name) to better reflect your data. I added some warning shields to indicate earthquake locations.Note that you can also add your own symbols.

It’s just that easy to display real-time data from GeoRSS.

And now, for something a little different, some Flickr fun.

Flickr, one of the web’s most popular photo sharing sites, allows users to search for recently uploaded images, based on place names. Notice in the sample URL below, “Oklahoma” and “Oklahoma+City” can be replaced with cities and states that matter to you.

Flickr (example, Oklahoma City) - http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/geo/United+States/Oklahoma/Oklahoma+City&format=rss_200

I can add this GeoRSS data feed to AGX, just as I did before. And as before, I’ll also change my Symbols, perhaps to a camera.

Explore the web and see if you can find some of your own GeoRSS data feeds! In fact, post them below to share with everyone!

- Tom Baker, ESRI Education Manager

2010 ESRI Education User Conference - Call for Presentations Nov 13

tbaker — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:47:00 GMT

Whatever your field, position, or GIS experience, be part of the knowledge-sharing and submit an abstract for possible presentation at the event. Communicate with your peers about your successes and inspiring student projects, teaching resources, and innovative GIS applications. User presentations enrich the experience of both attendees and presenters. The sharing of insights and lessons learned, as well as the networking these sessions lead to, is unbeatable. We can't wait to hear your GIS story. View the presentation tracks.

Deadline: November 13.

Learn More.

Fun with GIS #30: GIS = Powertool for STEM

tbaker — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:06:00 GMT

I spent last week at the annual conference of the State Educational Technology Directors Association. Participants and speakers talked about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to the point that I wished I had a nickel for every time it was mentioned. STEM content is indeed key to the future of our nation and planet, and I'll be heading to a STEM conference in Virginia in a week. I just wish it were a little easier for people to see what, to me, shines like a supernova -- that "GIS = STEM."

Educational challenges today include contextualizing content, chunking information, scaffolding skills, and doing it for more kids, with fewer resources, against a backdrop of increasing distractions. How do we help students understand fundamental tools of math, the power of models for planning, the complex interrelationships in the world, the world of data from the world AS data, and the myriad other concerns we have for youth heading toward a future filled with challenges?

Integrate real-world content about issues local to global, requiring accumulation of background information and analysis of data, to reach a conclusion. Attack an ill-structured problem by laying out significant elements, exploring the characteristics, seeking the relationships, and modeling solutions, to solve a problem. GIS is a perfect tool for doing that. But using any "powertool" takes practice. "Starting small" is a good idea.

It can begin easily, even at a young age, if approached sensibly. Most folks would not recommend "War and Peace" as the best primer for early readers. Young minds should begin exploring problems and analyzing data with appropriately-sized tasks. Where are the ant colonies most dense on the playground, and why? Is there a relationship between tree health and proximity to roads in our community? I wish I had a nickel for every educator who said they wanted to do GIS so they can have their students model the complex relationships between global politics, economic production, energy consumption, climate systems, population, and food production, in order to figure out how to deal with climate change. Many seem surprised when I suggest it will take them more than an afternoon to get comfy with tech tools, reams of data, analytical processes, and the background content from multiple disciplines needed to address this.

If we truly want youth to develop STEM capacity, they should begin at an early age, integrating and analyzing data from diverse fields and using the power of the computer to expose relationships. Track butterflies, map the local watershed, analyze the location of a midfielder through a soccer game. There are countless STEM-related topics for which GIS should be the "powertool" of choice.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Programs

Children Map the World, Volume 2

tbaker — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:44:00 GMT

Children Map the World, Volume 2, showcases one hundred favorite world map drawings submitted to the Barbara Petchenik Children's World Map Competition 2005-2007. The map competition, sponsored by The International Cartographic Association, was created as a memorial to Barbara Petchenik, a cartographer who studied how children comprehend maps. The vibrant collection of maps in this volume presents varying perspectives on the theme "Many Nations-One World" from young artists, ranging in age from four to fifteen and representing 37 countries. Cartographers, geographers, educators, and children will take interest in the colorful maps presented in this book.

More information.

Corny Geography: Mapping Corn Mazes in ArcGIS Explorer

tbaker — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:11:00 GMT

Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere means exploring mazes cut into fields of corn (maize) whose intricate patterns and shapes are created with GPS and a creative imagination. In a recent electronic newsletter from Point of Beginning, a resource dedicated to serving GPS, surveying, and GIS professionals, the editor discussed my article entitled “Teaching Geography Using Corn Mazes.” In this article, I created 10 lessons using corn mazes in the geography classroom that consider wayfinding, GPS, land use, mathematics, products from corn, soils, and more.

Let’s say you want to map the distribution of corn mazes. While corn maze websites abound, it is difficult to find a truly comprehensive one. What criteria would you use as a guideline to evaluate this or any site offering spatial data? I settled on The Corn Maze Directory. The issue then was a familiar one to GIS users—formatting. Because no text file or spreadsheet of maze locations existed, I visited each state’s link, copied and pasted the locational data into a text file, and inserted commas between the fields: Maze name, address, city, state, zip, telephone number. Next, in ArcGIS Explorer, I “added content” and pointed to my text file. The geocoding required 10 minutes for my 429 corn mazes, but considering that geocoding is performed in the cloud, with some addresses only indicating street intersections, this is amazing. Once finished, I could examine the corn mazes spatially:

Next, to analyze the relationship of where corn is grown to where mazes are located, I created a layer package from agricultural census data showing corn acreage by county; darker green indicating more corn. I added it along with a political boundaries base map from ArcGIS Online. I packaged up the data and placed it on ArcLessons. Interestingly, more corn mazes exist in New York and New Jersey than in the western corn belt states of Iowa and Nebraska, though the eastern corn belt states of Illinois and Indiana are well represented. Clearly, market population is also an important factor in locating corn mazes.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager