The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) has proclaimed February as Career & Technical Education Month. The association and its constituents are dedicated to developing an educated, prepared, adaptable, and competitive workforce in a rich blend of workforce pathways best represented by the Career Clusters Framework. Laced inside these individual clusters are geographical thinking, GIS, and geospatial technology and their application in the everyday world.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll highlight some of these career cluster and geotechnology intersections. Generally, our lives and the world around us are predictable. However, we also live in a world of change, the unexpected, and, at times, danger. A brilliant blue sky becomes a thunderous storm with serious flooding. The ground below our feet quakes toppling buildings. A tiny spark turns into a huge wildland fire engulfing forests and homes. A tanker car derails putting deadly fumes into the atmosphere. And, difficult to believe, some people inflict disaster on others on small and large scales. While our first line of protection in these instances is ourselves or our friends and family, at times we need help from others—persons involved with public safety, such as firefighters, emergency managers, law enforcement officials, or persons in related fields.


www.esri.com/haiti

Public safety occupations have at their core a mission of dealing with situations where life, property, and/or the environment are at risk. The tasks persons in these positions tackle involve many skills, including geographical thinking and the use of GIS and other geotechnologies. Surprised?

When we see a helicopter dropping a load of flame retardant on a spreading brush fire, or watch fire equipment racing off to a location, or hear evacuation alerts because of toxics in the air miles away, we probably don't think about it but underneath these actions is geographical thinking. For instance:

    Where do you decide to drop the retardant? How might the choice be affected by the path of the fire, terrain, presence of fuels (things that will burn) and weather?

    Where's the fire? Where's the fire station? What's the best route to the incident at this time of day? Once there, where are the fire hydrants? What's burning, where and what else is in the vicinity?

    Which way is the wind blowing and how fast? What is the rate the toxics will scatter and drop to the ground? What lies in the path of the noxious plume? Who should we evacuate and to where?

Public safety is not only about responding to emergencies. What if you could prevent a calamity from happening? This means being able to assess various threats, anticipate problems, prepare for natural and human catastrophes and how to handle them. Being able to literally map out and analyze this range of tasks is a key to public safety because geography is part of all of them. Geographic thinking is a critical skill regardless of the specific public safety occupation.

While we all carry maps around in our heads and have paper ones, public safety officials make use of high-tech tools and approaches. GIS and other geospatial technologies are providing firefighters, emergency managers, safety inspectors, and a host of other positions with the abilities to answer questions noted above and many more.

Learn more:
* Career Corner TV video profiles > Helicopter Pilot
* ESRI Map Book Gallery > Search = Public Safety, etc.
* ESRI Public Safety Program
* ESRI Homeland Security Program
* ESRI Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Program

Stay tuned for the next installment. Note:

The Career Clusters icons are being used with permission of the States’ Career Clusters Initiative, 2010, www.careerclusters.org

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager