Recently PBS aired The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The series has inspired this sequence of blog postings about aspects of my personal park explorations over the years. I’m using ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) in the investigation. See other national park blog posts for more.

Over the past few weeks we have explored some of the nation’s most important geographic jewels and we have used AGX to move us into and through these places. In the process, we have begun some earth systems science-focused investigations and used a range of AGX features, functions, and associated skill sets along the way. In these 400ish word postings it was not always possible to fully describe the steps taken to accomplish some of these. That issue has prompted me to construct a matrix that identifies AGX and related activities tackled in each of the ten postings (yes, we will add one more new skill here).

Here is a downloadable spreadsheet that not only indicates the actions taken in each blog posting but also links to them and most importantly links to the AGX Online Help discussion for the AGX and related activities. (NOTE: Some of the AGX Help discussions are broader than the specific item tackled in a particular park posting. For this reason, it also is very good to explore the park posting for links to AGX blog entries that tackle particular activities.)

As a last tweak to my favorite parks project, I decide I want to add my own symbol to indicate that the seven parks we have explored are simply the best…at least for now. A right click on one of the current park symbols allows me to browse to an image file on my hard drive or add a Web pathway to one. Earlier, I discovered a royalty-free clip art site, www.clker.com. At the site I find several new symbols I wish to add including the new icon for my fav parks. Here is the outcome of that work, including the addition of the new “thumbs-up” symbol to my map shown as a presentation slide.

I hope my AGX national park series and the reflection on what we have done and what skills we have built will help inspire you and your students to conduct your own geographic research with AGX and share your own geostories.

Remember: It’s great to gain a rich set of geographic visualization and analysis tool skills but don’t forget why you are doing it—because you’re inquisitive. Use AGX and companion geotools to indulge and grow your curiosity.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager