GIS Education Community Blog

At conferences and exhibits, we regularly have educators come by and ask “where does GIS fit in the curriculum?” Once getting beyond the moment of having that deer in the headlights look on my face and the thought “it fits everywhere,” I get into a rhythm of describing how while the “G” in GIS means it is foundationally geographic, it is integrative and interdisciplinary by nature given the kinds of questions and data people are exploring. My next step is to point directly to the annual ESRI Map Book which is loaded with examples of the kinds of projects and tasks users in numerous careers and settings are tackling—from local community concerns to efforts that seek to sustain the planet. In doing a quick tour of the Map Book with an educator, I point out how these project snapshots demonstrate that not only geography is embedded there but also math, science, technology, social sciences, and communications…to name a few intersecting subject areas.

Having done the above sequence numerous times, it struck me that it might be worthwhile to share this in a different way with a broader audience. So, I have created a short presentation that you can share with students and colleagues: GIS is Integrative, Interdisciplinary: Let Maps Tell the Story. (Download 1MB PDF file.)

The presentation basically asks the viewer to consider the variety of subject matter areas they see in a sampler of Map Book maps, as well as their integrative nature. It also points to a one-period lesson: Exploring Geographic Careers with the ESRI Map Book.

Consider also using this presentation as “starter dough” to make your own version(s). For instance, find a sequence of map images from previous Map Books that help you and your students examine a particular topic or geographic scale or region, such as including a map on Global Soil Regions as part of an exploration on sustainability issues, or a Hawaiian Volcanoes map and story as part of an examination of earth science and geospatial careers.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Manager

Here in Colorado at the ESRI Denver office, I have a favorite walking course that I take at lunchtime, which affords wonderful views of the Front Range mountains. I collected this course as a track using my GPS as an illustration of how easy it is to take field-collected positions and map them with a variety of GIS tools. Here, let’s use ArcGIS Explorer, a freely downloadable GIS that can easily stream data from the Internet or display it from the GIS data files on your local computers. In the field, I simply turned on my GPS receiver, a Garmin GPS 76S Map, and it automatically collected my track. Back in the office, I saved the track in the GPS receiver and used the Minnesota DNR’s free Garmin software ( http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mis/gis/tools/arcview/extensions/DNRGarmin/DNRGarmin.html ) to transfer my track to the computer. I used the DNR tool to save my track as a point shapefile. I had 129 points in the file, and the attribute table associated with the shapefile had a latitude and longitude value for each point, as shown below.

I then added my track using “File” and then “Open” and I navigated to my locally stored shapefile. I changed the symbols to a 6-meter yellow pushpin, and then rotated and tilted my walkabout to view it from southeast to northwest, as follows:

I saved this document as an .nmf file so that I can return to it. The advantages of mapping in ArcGIS Explorer are that it is quick, that the base imagery automatically was added, and I could examine my route in 3-D. Your students could use the same procedures to map their route to your campus or between data points at their field study site.

What else could you do with these points once they are inside ArcGIS Explorer? You could hyperlink selected points to ground photographs or movies, to web addresses, to text files, or anything else that could be accessed on your computer. I will discuss these tasks in a future blog posting.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

Submit your application by May 16, 2008.

Don't miss this exciting opportunity to attend the largest GIS conference in the world. Graduate students and fourth-year undergraduate students who use or apply geospatial applications and concepts in their coursework are invited to apply for the ESRI International User Conference Student Assistantship Program.

As many as 60 students will be selected to attend and assist with the ESRI International User Conference, August 4-8, 2008, in San Diego, California.

Student responsibilities include monitoring sessions, registration, staffing, and overall logistics. ESRI also sets aside time for the students to attend sessions led by some of the most talented people in the GIS software industry. View application details.

If you are looking for a classroom idea, consider having your students participate in the Ed Community’s Presidential Mapper at:  http://edcommunity.esri.com/projects

This quick little activity will record your student’s vote, geocode their location (based only on city/state) and create a map and charts of all votes.  You can also download all of the data (even the data your students just entered) into ArcGIS Explorer for further viewing and analysis.

FONT face=Calibri size=3>For more information about GIS in Elections, see:  http://www.esri.com/industries/elections

I'm away from the office for a bit, but I've left a clue for users of ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/MacOSX), lightweight GIS tool.

I'm somewhere in the map below for a few days. You can know much more precisely using the attached AEJEE project.  Download this file "L_wheresCharlie.zip", which assumes the user has AEJEE 2.3.2 installed in the default location ([harddrive]:\ESRI). Store the unzipped file in a sensible place (such as \ESRI\AEJEE\data\lessons).

Then you need to follow the instructions from my blog entry of April 21 about how to open an AEJEE project with a layout. (Notice how the above file was named!) If you shortcut the process, you won't get the answer! Solve the puzzle!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

ArcGlobe, part of ArcGIS’ 3D Analyst extension, is a useful tool for education. I recently described how to model population change in ArcGlobe. Let’s investigate how one might use it to study plate tectonics. To the default image of the world, I added an entire year’s earthquakes, countries, and plate boundaries as vectors. I extruded the earthquake points into vertical lines based on the magnitude of the earthquake, as shown below. Because the earthquakes will appear in meters above the surface, so that they will be visible, I multiplied each magnitude by a number. However, if I multiply magnitude by a single constant, each earthquake’s height will be similar due to the small magnitude range. If the constant is, say 10,000, then a magnitude 4 earthquake will be assigned a height of 40,000 while a magnitude 8 will appear 80,000 meters high. Because I want to exaggerate the number so that the students will clearly see the differences, I used the following expression:

Thus, magnitude 4 earthquakes are shown at 4*4*4*10,000, or 640,000 meters high, but magnitude 8 earthquakes are shown at 8*8*8*10,000, or 5,120,000 meters high:

To visualize the depth of an earthquake, set the extrusion value to multiply the depth field by a constant so that the depth lines will be long enough to see. In addition, multiply the result by -1, so that these earthquake depths appear underneath the surface, rather than above the surface. The results from expression [DEPTH] * 5000 * -1 for the extrusion value effectively show how deep the earthquakes tend to be along South America’s western subducting zone, but how shallow they are along the Mid-Atlantic Ocean’s ridge of crustal creation. I also made the country symbol hollow so that one can clearly see the earthquakes “through” the countries.

If students are to fully understand global phenomena taking place in three dimensions, they need 3D tools to do so. ArcGlobe is a fast and easy 3D toolkit that can help students understand the horizontal and vertical patterns of phenomena.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

Recently, we have been examining different GIS tools useful for studying population change over time. We began with two-dimensional analysis using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), followed by 3D analysis using ArcScene. Let’s turn our attention to another 3D tool called ArcGlobe.

ArcGlobe allows for the viewing of large amounts of GIS data on a globe surface, from local to planetary scale. ArcGlobe supports display and query of raster data, geoprocessing, and geodatabases. It ships with a comprehensive set of imagery on DVD, including planetary elevation data.

ArcGlobe is a part of the 3D Analyst extension. To access ArcGlobe, engage the 3D Analyst extension, turn on the 3D Analyst toolbar, and select the ArcGlobe tool. ArcGlobe opens with a default view of the planet, as follows:

I added my data layer showing 1900 to 2000 population by county to this default globe. I then symbolized the layer by the percent change over a 10-year period, from 1990 to 2000, as quantile. I made certain that one of the break points was 0, so that I could quickly determine which counties lost population during that time period, and which counties gained population. I then accessed the “Globe Extrusion” tab and set the value represented by the counties when they turned into 3D towers, as follows:

“PERCENT” represents the percentage change from 1990 to 2000, but note that it will be extruded above the surface of the Earth in meters. If a county increased by 22%, it would be difficult to see at only 22 meters high. I therefore multiplied it by 10,000, so that this county will tower 22,000 meters high.

After applying, I’m ready to analyze from all angles in 3D:

The advantage of ArcGlobe is that it looks and acts like virtual globe software, but is much faster because the data does not stream from the Internet, but resides and can be cached on the local computer.

ArcGlobe is a fast and easy way of helping students understand change over time in 3D.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

The approach of summer marks the start of fire season, and there's an easy way to explore the situation quickly using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/MacOSX), lightweight GIS tool. All you need to do is open an AEJEE window and add the "ESRI_MODIS" layer from the Geography Network.

The MODIS layer comes in with indicators of fires from the last day, last week, and this year. It can be a sobering vision, and such impact is necessary for people to fathom the expanding impact of humans on the environment, and the ways in which geography matters.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

A multi-day blog: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I was still curious about the occurrence and geographic spread of earthquake events in the region and along my “line of five.” I likewise noted that the April 18 quake event was reported to be part of the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone though proximate to the New Madrid area. I went back to the earthquake search function at USGS. I grabbed new sets of records from two databases—historic (1534-1986) and recent (1973-present)—for an area bounded by 39N, 34N, 86W, and 92W. I added these point files to my project.

Both the historic (1115 records) and the recent (320) events presented a definite “zigzag” pattern in the New Madrid area. However, the remaining epicenters seemed more scattershot with no discernible pattern…except it is very clear that generally fewer quakes have happened to the southeast. Here is the map showing events from 1973 to 2008 in the area of interest. (NOTE: I also did some Table of Contents cleanup—relabeling and reorganizing my results layers. I also added a link to the City of New Madrid, Missouri Web site.)

So where is the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone and does the seemingly random spread of earthquakes in Southern Illinois associate with any underlying fault zones?

I did a quick Web search on “Wabash Valley Seismic Zone” and found a great map graphic of it and its near south cousin displaying that Wabash events seem to be less “patterned.” Using the “Create Notes” task I added a “ghosted” place marker. I named it, “Midcontinent Danger Zones” and added the map graphic Web address to the note.

Lastly, I searched the Illinois State Geological Survey’s GIS data holdings. This led me to fault data which I downloaded and added (purple lines) to my growing ArcGIS Explorer project. While not all earthquakes in the Wabash region “connect” to the fault lines, some do, and the geographic limits of ISGS data suggest that Indiana fault line data would make a good future addition.

The last project modifications are visible below.

Well, what started as an interest in looking for connections between several Midwestern earthquake events mushroomed into a broader investigation…and many questions. One of the exciting things is that using ArcGIS Explorer provided me a fast way of adding new GIS and multimedia content to the growing exploration. Hopefully it’s offered you a compelling geographic study and a better sense of what you can do with ArcGIS Explorer.

Be sure to see the ArcGIS Explorer blog for another study on the April 18 earthquake in Southern Illinois.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Manager

A multi-day blog: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Exploring the USGS site further, I found a series of National Seismic Hazard Maps for the country and the region. The images helped me remember that there is a seismic hazards map layer available for free download at the USGS National Atlas. After a needed projection tweak that I accomplished with ArcView 9.2, I added the downloaded hazards layer as a local shapefile to ArcGIS Explorer. Since the hazards layer is a series of polygons, I decided to represent the ground motion zonal boundaries with no fill color displaying them simply as red outlines.

Like oblong ripples in a pond, the new data showed an area of highest probability lying along the axis of my quake locations: There seems to be clear relationship among this group and seismic hazards in the area. The community of New Madrid, Missouri is squarely in the heart of the ring of highest probability along with the two 1812 events. The remaining three are very near the most potent zone.

I also chose to make a few connections to other information about this handful of events; adding Web links to the USGS story about the April 2008 earthquake, to a newspaper article for the November 1968 one, and to a drawing of the devastation in New Madrid in 1811-12. The image below offers a synthesis of all the above additions.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Manager

A multi-day blog: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

My first task was to get these events on the globe. To do that, I needed to find out where they occurred and anything else I could discover. The best place to uncover that kind of information is via the Earthquake Hazards Program of the US Geological Survey (USGS). The data about the most recent event was easy to find as it just made news. For 1968 and 1811-12, I did a little bit of searching in the Historic Earthquake area. Once discovered, I used Notepad to build a quick table.

Next, I added the table to an ArcGIS Explorer project by using the “Import File” wizard in the Tools menu. The addition of the quakes presented an interesting linear pattern so I went back to the USGS earthquake search function and uncovered two other locations for associated New Madrid 1812 events. Using “Go to Location” in the Tool Menu, I was able to quickly add these quakes as new “Results” in my project and I included their attributes in the associated “Popup Window.”

The seeming linear nature of this quintet of events became clearer and to emphasize it, I used the “Measure” task to represent the line with the 1811 and 2008 events at the poles. I also used the “Find Place” task to put New Madrid, Missouri on the map in the path of danger. But does this straight line comparison for my sample of five hold any validity, or is it just random luck?

"Exploring a Midwest Earthquake Zone with ArcGIS Explorer: Part III" will be published April 24, 2008.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Manager

A multi-day blog: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Growing up in Southern Illinois near the Mississippi River, the natural hazards we faced tended to be weather or water related. But, teachers also made it clear to us that we could just as easily be threatened by rumblings from beneath our feet. As I learned, there was a series of massive earthquakes that happened in the early 1800’s in an area called the New Madrid Seismic Zone. From December 16, 1811, through February 7, 1812, a string of temblors with magnitudes estimated at 7.2 to 8.1 wracked the region. The severity of these events caused the Mississippi to “flow” backwards, change course, and result in the creation of new lakes, such as Reelfoot Lake in TN.

For a teenager, 1811 was ancient and the associated earthquakes were equally distant and improbable in the present. So imagine my surprise while at work in a clothing warehouse in downtown St. Louis on Saturday November 9, 1968, an earthquake happened. We didn’t know what it was. Major shaking of the many overhead metal clothing racks chased us outside where we had a chance to watch major buildings swaying. While not centered near the 1811-12 quakes, it was not far away, and, while only a 5.5 tremor, it seemed overwhelming in its power.

Spin forward to April 18, 2008, and the region was again visited by a potent quake. According to news stories this event, a 5.2, was the most powerful since the one I experienced 40 years earlier…

…and with these temporally separated events as backdrop, I decided to do a little geographic work with ArcGIS Explorer.

"Exploring a Midwest Earthquake Zone with ArcGIS Explorer: Part II" will be published April 23, 2008.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Manager

A lot of educators are using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/MacOSX), lightweight GIS tool. A frequent question is how to annotate a map. This is possible only within the layout option (VIEW/LAYOUT). But if you create annotations and save the project, how do you re-open the project to see them? The trick is to open an instance of AEJEE, immediately switch to layout view, and *then* use FILE/OPEN to access the saved project. The graphic elements get stored in the project file, and reappear when opened in layout mode. (A little tinkering may be necessary to make textboxes appear exactly as originally configured.)

How does a user know to open the project in layout mode? It will help if the project creator will save the project with a name that indicates this, such as "Layout_pop05.axl" or "L_pop05.axl". Set up a naming scheme and get used to using it.

Try the attached project file as an example.Download this file "layout.zip", which assumes the user has AEJEE 2.3.2 installed in the default location ([harddrive]:\ESRI). Store the unzipped file in a sensible place (such as \ESRI\AEJEE\data\lessons), engage AEJEE, switch to layout mode, and open it up.

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

We have recently been examining a simple yet powerful topic that can easily be studied with a GIS—population change over time. We have been asking why population change in US counties has occurred, if current trends are radically different than past trends, and what the country will look like in another generation if current trends continue.

Analyzing population in 3D can help students understand the dimension and pattern of change over time. The ArcGIS family of products offers several excellent ways to display data in 3D. Let’s start with the 3D Analyst extension. After selecting the ArcScene function and adding your population change layer to the scene, the map can be manipulated in three dimensions. Right click on the layer name and access properties. You will notice a few new tabs, including Extrusion. Below, I ask the computer to extrude the value in the population field (called “Percent,” representing population change in percent from 1990 to 2000). This turns my county polygons into 3D blocks. I divide it by 30 so that the blocks don’t stretch up to the moon.

I also symbolized each county by Change in the symbology tab, just as you would in ArcMap. The resulting image, below, is one that the students can rotate, zoom and pan, and ask questions about as they explore.

Notice Florida and Georgia’s rapid increase in percent. How different would the data look in terms of raw number changes? The 3D extension allows you to quickly change the variable mapped to find out.

Counties losing population are “wells” underneath the surface of the Earth. I rotate to the northern Great Plains and look south from Manitoba, below.

It is my hope that the students will notice the radical difference between population change in North Dakota versus lands to the southwest. The tower in Colorado is not far from where I live—Douglas County, midway between Denver and Colorado Springs, a beautiful area but is under population growth pressure from both metropolitan areas.

- Joseph Kerski, Education Manager

The news this weekend carried a report about a recent tectonic activity off the coast of Oregon. I decided to check this out using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education, ESRI’s free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/MacOSX), lightweight GIS tool.

I opened up AEJEE and connected straightaway to the Geography Network. There are a couple of earthquake services there. I opened up “ESRI_Quake_Rec” and immediately saw the chaos off the Oregon coast. I zoomed in for a better look. To give an additional reference, I added “plates.shp” from the AEJEE/data/world folder, moved it to the top, set the layer as transparent, and changed the border to orange. Then I used the identify tool and looked at the biggest recent quake, a 5.2 just over one day ago.

The capacity to integrate data sources, identify specific features (even from an online service), and conduct relevant analysis of a current situation is what makes GIS a powerful tool and AEJEE a key technology for today’s students … at school, and – especially if they don’t get to use it at school – at home!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager