ESRI Blogs

GIS Day with Explorer in Corpus Christi, Texas

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:50:00 GMT

A total of 490 students plus teachers from 14 middle and high schools surrounding Corpus Christi, Texas, were hosted at Texas A&M by the University and Del Mar College on GIS Day. The City and local users of GIS gave presentations and demonstrated how their community is using GIS. ESRI showed ArcGIS Explorer and the students found their campus and vowed to download it as soon as possible. The picture below shows two teachers finding their school location using ArcGIS Explorer.

We only had about 5 minutes with each group of about 15 students – but they all “got it” right away and some didn’t want to leave the station. Wish I could have shown them more. We also had the Weather feed on live and NOAA was there so they could see the data at NOAA booth and see it in ArcGIS Explorer! I also quickly showed them how to make a presentation. I had to take weather off of the screen shot as it covered the city! Explorer was a big hit!

Contributed by:
Ann B. Johnson
Higher Education Program Manager

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.

Exploring the Flood Path Project

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:29:00 GMT

The US Geological Survey is working on a new technology that could make flood prediction much more accurate and easier for the public to recognize the danger spots. In this video clip the U.S. Geological Survey, Washington Water Science Center in Tacoma, Washington uses ArcGIS Explorer to demonstrate the power of their flood modeling technology during this local news special on extreme weather.

The USGS Floodpath model, currently being migrated to ArcGIS Server, forecasts the time of arrival, depth and destructive force for the watershed based on forecast data from the NOAA Weather Service. The animation effect in the video was accomplished using an ArcGIS Explorer presentation which allowed this complex analysis to be conveyed with just a simple push on the space bar to advance to the next "slide."

We think this is another great example of how Explorer enables you to use actual GIS data and analysis results to communicate geographically to a broad audience.

(Contributed by: David Gadsden, ESRI NW Federal Account Manager, and Scott Moore, ESRI Solutions Engineer)

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.

GIS Day with the Arizona Geological Survey

bszukalski — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:08:00 GMT

Earlier today Lee Allison, Arizona State Geologist and director of the Arizona Geological Survey, let me know of an event that seemed just perfect to share on GIS Day. Lee used ArcGIS Explorer during a presentation at a meeting of the Arizona State Legislature Ad-Hoc Committee on Mining Regulation.

Lee takes advantage of a number of ArcGIS Explorer capabilities, including presentations, the ability to work with live data, incorporating lots of different kinds of content, using layer packages, and a lot more.

It takes a few moments for Explorer to appear in the video. But view it, and you'll understand what communicating geographically means.

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

Show us your GIS: Water Resources Agency, Taiwan

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:42:00 GMT

Our first submission in our show us your geography and GIS using ArcGIS Explorer challenge comes from Taipei, Taiwan.

The Taiwan Inquiry and Supply System of Water Resources Data delivers uniform data access and distribution capabilities. The Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, uses a variety of GIS and Web solutions to create a warehouse system for data collection, distribution, storage, and management. The site was developed using ArcGIS Server 9.3.1 and includes an Adobe Flex application.

Here's the ArcGIS services viewed using ArcGIS Explorer.

And here's the Flex application using the same ArcGIS services.

Many thanks to Yea-Huey Wang and Elisa Hsiao from the Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, in Taipei, Taiwan, for sharing their geography and GIS with us.

You can view the Web site at: http://gweb.wra.gov.tw/wrweb/gisindex.htm

Talking Points From a Recent Workshop

jenn775 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:27:00 GMT

For the past few months I have had the opportunity to showcase the contributions from the members of the ArcGIS Land Records team. Since the debut of the Land Records Resource Center in the middle of the year we have been enthused with the reception it has received. After multiple presentations at conferences and other events, it is safe to say that many times, we at ESRI come away learning as much as the attendees.

Recently I had the pleasure of presenting a Land Records Resource Center workshop with Nancy von Meyer and her colleagues Jimmy Bradley and David Stage in Waveland, Mississippi. The workshop was a great success for all involved. We covered all of the aspects of the Land Records User Community site including the Blog and Media Gallery sections, but focused heavily on the Template Gallery, especially the Tax Parcel Editing Template.

This blog entry is a summary of the discussion we had in Mississippi.

Shortcut keys were a hot topic during the training. They save a lot of time, and are immensely valuable. Naturally, someone asked where they could find a list of the shortcuts for future reference. As mentioned in the Tax Parcel Editing Functionality blog there is a PDF version of the popular cheat sheet handout.
Something that naturally happens in development is the fact that developers or those close to an application’s design become accustomed to an interface, even though it may have some flaws. Thus is the case with the front page for the Land Records Resource Center. For those just learning about the site it might not be very apparent that in order to get to the Template Gallery you first need to click on the Community tab. It was suggested that we add a link under the Getting Started section. We thought this was a good idea, but we would like your feedback on this and anything else regarding the Land Records Resource Center.
Another useful technique I showed was the use of SnapTips. SnapTips are small pieces of text that pop up to show what you are snapping to. They are extremely useful when you have multiple items set to snap (vertex, edge, and end) on the same layer in the Snapping Environment dialog. Unfortunately, SnapTips don’t get a lot of press as someone noticed in the class, but you can find more information about them online at this link.
Ok, this one has been mentioned multiple times so I need to get working on it. People want the option to select a feature automatically when they use the Search tool on the editing toolbar. This will be a priority enhancement to the next release of the toolbar. Look for that functionality and more in the near future.
Another minor adjustment is to lengthen the search field. This was done as a sample for the Mississippi workshop and will be in the next release of the toolbar. The next release will also include the ability to search more than one feature class.
The maintenance of Simultaneous Conveyances and Historical Simultaneous Conveyances can be a tricky topic, even for me. Look for a blog about this soon from Nancy von Meyer, the clear expert on the subject matter.
One part of the training required me to explain the differences in the functionality of the Edit tool vs. the Select tool. Check out this article if you want more information.
To some, using COGO can seem like learning a foreign language. If this is the case in your organization I suggest that everyone become acquainted with the information in this link.
One of the components of the editing toolbar is the ability to retire selected parcels to a history layer. We added this functionality after discovering that many people just needed a quick and easy way to record how specific parcels looked before they were edited. Look for a blog regarding this soon.
A number of users have stated that they expected to see a blog archive included with the template downloads. We intentionally excluded the blogs from the download file. We felt that the best place to manage the blogs would be the live link and thus it would provide the most current and up to date information. However, we realize that not everybody discovers the blogs right away. So, maybe we can include a link to the blog site in the current PDF help document. Let us know what you think.

As a final note, on behalf of the ArcGIS Land Records team I would like to say thank you for the great feedback we have received. Your feedback helps us improve the template deliverables directly. At this time I would like to specifically thank Anna Williams from Polk County, Florida. Thanks to her testing, she helped me fix an issue with the sketch graphics in the Snake Pin tool that had been "bugging" me for a while. That fix will be included with the next release. So, we all should send Anna a great big thank you, and thanks to the many others who have provided us with feedback.

Please continue to contribute to the posts (ArcGISTeamLandRecords@esri.com).

Thank you,

Arthur Robinson

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

UC Planning Commences

alylawson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

While planning for the 30th annual UC gets well under way, ESRI is taking a look at what makes a conference worthwhile today and how the 2010 conference can go above and beyond attendee expectations.

The Perks of the
Plenary Session
If you could only visit the UC for one day, Monday’s all-day Plenary Session would be your one-stop shop for learning the latest in GIS and getting your annual dose of inspiration from the ESRI community.

“The huge screens and visuals were so high tech; I felt as if I were at a drive-in movie,” says Sandra Fernandez-Achenbach, a teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District and graduate student at California State University, Northridge. “I met an interesting GIS worker from Indonesia who helps protect the rain forest there. I learned about the recent ArcGIS software changes and improvements just released. And I learned that Jack (Dangermond, ESRI president) is very involved internationally and supports sustainable development initiatives. I loved it.”

Last year, multiple keynote speakers graced the stage. This multi-faceted approach to discussing GIS applications in different industries will continue this year. Attendees will also hear from Dangermond and award recipients, presentations that mark achievements in the user community and highlight ways organizations of all sizes—and professionals at all levels of GIS experience—can leverage the technology. Invited youth will show what the next generation of GIS users is working on, and GIS updates and demonstrations will unveil what’s new and coming.

What’s in Store for the Agenda
“Quality has come to trump quantity,” says UC coordinator K.C. Shearer. “We’re in the throes of making sure the sessions aren’t just about including every topic under the sun but addressing the trends, giving practical solutions, and really sharing the why and the how. There are hundreds of user presentations and technical workshops to choose from at the conference, but, more importantly, the 2010 agenda is being geared toward really helping people head home with apt skills and ideas, creating learning and networking opportunities that work, and helping attendees find like-minded folks with proven methods.”

Shearer continues, “When attendees are outside the meeting rooms, they’ll find quantity where it’s needed, with thousands of their peers, staff from all areas of ESRI, and more than 300 business partners catering to the GIS audience.”

Ways to Participate
Now more than ever, ESRI is working to pack the sessions with punch and make the trip to Southern California worth every penny. But the meat of the conference is user participation. From tweeting and blogging to giving a lightning talk or submitting a map, ESRI encourages users to speak out, say what they want from the conference, and then share at the event why GIS is needed and what’s been the result so far: Faster emergency response? Bigger return on investment? Better air quality?

Explore and watch www.esri.com/uc this winter for online registration, room reservations, and the opening of more ways to participate.

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

Show us your geography and GIS!

ArcGIS-Explorer-Team — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:39:00 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!

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.

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

Adding logos to your maps

bszukalski — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:01:00 GMT

We've covered image overlays a bit in a couple of earlier posts, one on adding some spiffy titles and another on adding legends to your printed maps. And here's yet another use for image overlays - adding your company or organization logo to your maps.

First, create a PNG file of your logo. Note that we've left a bit of a transparent border around the logo in this Photoshop example. This will keep it positioned slightly out of the corners of our map.

Next, add the PNG file as an image overlay and position it. We've chosen the upper right corner.

And here's what the logo looks like. We can also set its transparency if we like.

To always open a map with the logo set this map as your default. Choose Save As, then My Default Map.

An alternative method is to use the PNG logo in an application configuration. This is done using the Application Configuration Manager. We'll cover more about application configurations in an upcoming post, or you can read more about using them and the Application Configuration Manager in the Explorer Help.

Visit ESRI at Defense-Related Career Fairs This Month

Careers-Team — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:34:00 GMT

Are you a seasoned professional with experience in the federal, defense, or intelligence sectors? ESRI will be at two recruiting events this month seeking candidates with this type of experience for positions in our Washington, D.C. and St. Louis regional offices as well as our corporate headquarters in Redlands, California.

The positions include Applications Programmers and Developers, GIS Project Managers, Systems Architects, Consultants/Project Managers (Homeland Security), Federal Team Account Managers, and Technical Analysts. Candidates are required to have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, GIS, geography or a related field; a master’s degree is preferred for some opportunities. Excellent teamwork, leadership, communication, and presentation skills are required for all positions.

RecruitMilitary Opportunity Expo
TechExpo Career Fair

Can't attend but want to know more? Visit www.esri.com/careers for specific requirements and responsibilities.

One of the Top 10 Reasons to Work at ESRI: Growth

Careers-Team — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:34:00 GMT

Develop your potential.

ESRI encourages employees to continually grow through lifelong learning. You will have opportunities to participate in job-related training classes designed to improve your technical, sales, interpersonal, and management skills. These might be workshops and seminars, on-site classes, or our own Virtual Campus courses.

An expansive resource library on campus, shown at left, maintains hundreds of GIS books and publications. You can also learn new skills by taking on projects outside of your regular responsibilities.

Read the entire Top 10 list.

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.

Adding legends to printed maps

bszukalski — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:13:00 GMT

ArcGIS Explorer provides basic printing capabilities that enable you to do a "quick print" of your map, and allows you control (via the chosen printer) options like orientation and page size.

You can view the legend for a map item by choosing its Tools tab, then clicking Show Legend. Or by right-clicking the item in Contents and choosing Show Legend. Though the legend is displayed, it is not captured in the quick print of the map. But here's a way to include one on your print using Image Overlays.

First, capture the legend and copy it to a program like Paint or something similar. Here we've used Photoshop to add a blue border, and we've also offset the legend by 50 pixels or so from the left side.

When you're satisfied with how it looks, save it out as a PNG file, then add the PNG as an Image Overlay.

Once you've done so you can choose its position.

We've chosen the option to center the overlay along the left side of our map. Because we left a transparent margin in the PNG file, it will be offset from the edge.

Now all we have to do is print.

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.