GIS Education Community Blog

Submit your proposal for the 2009 EdUC!

2008-10-11T09:13:00Z

Proposals are now being accepted for the 2009 ESRI Education User Conference and International User Conference, to be held July 2009 in San Diego, CA. Instructors, administrators, librarians, youth program leaders, researchers, and anyone else with an interest in GIS in education are encouraged to participate.

Presenters can choose between Moderated Paper Sessions and Illustrated Paper Sessions:
* Moderated sessions include 3 presentations on related topics in a lecture format.
* Illustrated sessions include 5 short presentations in a poster or slideshow format, followed by individual or small group discussions.

Full details and the proposal form can be found at www.esri.com/educ. The deadline for proposals is October 17, 2008.

Mapping Field Data and Hyperlinking Ground Images in ArcGIS Explorer

2008-10-10T09:47:00Z

I recently conducted an inservice workshop for secondary-level instructors here at ESRI in Broomfield, Colorado. I find that including GIS and GPS technologies in the framework of inquiry-based lessons fits quite well with the goal of modeling how to teach applied geography—investigating culture, people, landscapes, natural hazards, biodiversity, urban sprawl, and in this case, land cover and land use.

On campus here, we took some GPS readings, and noted the natural land cover, current land cover, and current land use. We wrote down the latitude, longitude, natural land cover (in this case, shortgrass prairie), current land cover (in this case, grass lawn with some native longstem grasses planted), and current land use (office park). Once back in the lab, we created a spreadsheet of this data, saved it as a CSV file, and used Tools Import File to map it in 3-D using ArcGIS Explorer. We downloaded the photographs from the camera and uploaded them to a website (alternatively, we could have uploaded them to the local computer). Next, we added the following text to the popup content window for a selected point:

< HTML>
 View to the Flatirons from ESRI Broomfield 
Shortgrass Prairie Ecoregion 
<IMG height=250 src="http://www.josephkerski.com/images/back_lawn.jpg" width=430>

Quick help guides abound on the Internet for writing simple HTML scripts like the one above. For example, the tags make the text bold. The size parameters in the IMG SRC (image source) tags reduce the size of the photographs on the popup windows so they won’t take up the whole screen.

We then right clicked on each data point and told the software to show the popup window. The result is below:

The activity took only 45 minutes, but could be expanded to include additional points, or linking to videos, scanned landscape sketches, URLs about the land use of this area, observations about each point written as text files, and more.

If this whets your appetite for doing more, see the ArcGIS Explorer blog: http://blogs.esri.com/Info/blogs/arcgisexplorerblog/

For popup windows, see: http://blogs.esri.com/Info/blogs/arcgisexplorerblog/archive/2008/04/07/photos-and-sounds-in-note-popups.aspx

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

2009 ESRI 4-H Grants Application - Deadline Dec 1

2008-10-09T09:46:00Z

The information regarding the 2009 ESRI GIS Grants for 4-H (U.S) is now available at http://www.esri.com/industries/k-12/4-h/grants.html. Please share this email with others interested in incorporating GIS technologies into their local 4-H programs. They can learn more about 4-H and GIS projects at http://www.esri.com/4-H.

Mo< Please note the application deadline for the 2009 grants is Monday, DECEMBER 1, 2008.

You'll find the Grant Guidelines and a separate application for each grant level at the web site. Please plan ahead and read the application instructions carefully. The guidelines are essential reading. 4-H leadership and ESRI are asking that grantees research who their GIS professionals are in the local community prior to submitting the grant application. We've added a new entry level grant this year for extension educators and leaders new to spatial technologies. New Grant applicants may choose to apply for either a Getting Started or and Introductory grant.

Three different grant types are available:

See the links above for more information.

2008 ESRI International User Conference Plenary—GIS: Geography in Action

2008-10-08T09:24:00Z

Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI, discusses the theme of the 2008 ESRI International User Conference, GIS: Geography in Action, and explains how GIS is helping to create a more sustainable world.

Listen to the podcast [16:37 | 11.4 MB]

Fun With GIS, Using AEJEE: #4, Mapping Current Events in AEJEE

2008-10-06T09:30:00Z

A few weeks ago, I started a "Fun With GIS" series, using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/Mac), lightweight GIS tool. This week, we'll do what a lot of folks want to do: map current events.

Of course, the type of current event matters. Redlands, CA, is in a tectonically active zone. The other night, I was "rocked awake". I looked at the clock and saw "2:43", felt the wiggle subside after about five seconds, and went back to sleep.

In the morning, I decided to make a map. I opened AEJEE and, following the process described in Lesson 5 of AEJEE's built-in tutorial, chose immediately to add a layer from the Geography Network. I added the "ESRI_Quake_Rec", which is an "image service" showing recent quakes. I zoomed in to the Los Angeles basin, and decided the display wasn't quite what I wanted. I added another layer, "ESRI_Quake_Rec_FS", which is a "feature service", allowing me to add a specific item. At the time I added a single layer for "Last Day", but now I have to add "Last Week" to get quakes from a few days back (Version [2] works when zoomed in). The "FS" layer allows me to change the symbology, so I shifted the color to cyan to highlight the symbol. (Pacific Daylight Time is 7 hours different from GMT.) The cyan dot along the diagonal line of mountains shows the 4.1 magnitude quake that woke me -- a little rumble about 8 miles away.

The Geography Network has some excellent content, but there are also many ArcIMS servers out there with interesting content about recent events. You can do an internet search using two items -- "ArcIMS" and the topic or region of your choice. Explore!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

Demonstrating Spatial Analysis Functions Online

2008-10-03T09:55:00Z

How many times teaching GIS have you wanted to quickly illustrate a function such as geocoding or viewsheds but you didn’t have GIS software or spatial data loaded on the instructor’s computer? Many key GIS functions are available on the ESRI Resources pages that allow you to demonstrate the functions without any software required, thanks to ArcGIS Server technology combined with application programming interfaces available through JavaScript and other tools.

To access these tools, visit: http://resources.esri.com. You may wish to bookmark this source for useful online maps, data sets, tools, and more. Next, select “ArcGIS Server.” On the following screen, select the “Resources” tab at the top and pull down the “Online SDKs”. These are the Software Development Kits, and can be used with JavaScript, Flex, .NET, and Java to develop your own mashups, geoprocessing tools, and more.

Select JavaScript, and on the next screen, ArcGIS JavaScript API. You should now be on the page: http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/javascript/arcgis/index.cfm?fa=home.

Select the “Samples” tab to see online samples on the left side. You can use them to illustrate specific functions, the power of spatial analysis, and even have students use the source code to build their own applications. For each sample, select “View Live Sample” above the description and source code.

Say you want to illustrate the difference between geocoding an address and a reverse geocode. Simply access the Geocode Task and the live sample for both types of geocoding. Population Zonal Stats will estimate the population in the area that you draw on the map. Buffering, projecting, and viewsheds (shown below in orange) are other handy samples.

The “Message in a Bottle” sample uses a particle tracking model to show where a bottle would travel after a specified number of days if dropped in the ocean, and hence, it serves also as a good illustration of ocean currents.

Often, a quick demonstration is the perfect way to illustrate GIS processes, and these samples allow you to do just that. Try them and let me know how it worked.

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

2008 ESRI International User Conference Plenary—U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne

2008-10-02T09:20:00Z

Listen to Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne receive ESRI’s Making a Difference Award and announce the USGS’s latest action to make its 35-year Landsat satellite image archive freely available for worldwide use.

Listen to the podcast [13:45 | 9.48 MB]

AAG's Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Awards

2008-10-01T09:37:00Z

These awards aim to recognize excellence in academic performance by undergraduate students from the United States and Canada who are putting forth a strong effort to bridge geographic science and computer science as well as to encourage other students to embark upon similar programs. Application deadline is October 15, 2008 for more information see www.aag.org/grantsawards/marble_boyle.htm

Educator Discounts for ESRI Training

2008-09-30T09:57:00Z

Just a reminder:

"An education discount of 40% is applied to your order for Virtual Campus and Instructor-led courses if you are faculty, staff, or a student of a recognized academic institution. Discounts cannot be combined. Check for eligibility. This discount does not apply to client-site classes."

More details available.

Fun With GIS, Using AEJEE: #3, Bringing GPS Data into AEJEE

2008-09-29T09:07:00Z

Recently, I started a "Fun With GIS" series, using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/Mac), lightweight GIS tool. This week, we'll do what a lot of teachers, students, parents, families, and general adventurers want to do: integrate GPS data into a map.

The first task is to go out and collect some data points. With an inexpensive Garmin eTrex GPS, I collected two routes on my GPS -- my morning running route and my walk to and from work. Thanks to "DNR Garmin", a free, downloadable, Windows-based application built by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, it was easy to export the data from the GPS unit directly to a shapefile. After that, I opened AEJEE, added the shapefile, classified the routes according to their name, and gave each a separate color.

Then I just added some underlying context. I could have used the Geography Network but chose instead an aerial photo data set from the USGS Seamless server (seamless.usgs.gov).

My map is now ready to post on a personal website. I could create a layout with an inset map for context, or annotate it in a paint program. Lots of options! But mastering the simple task of collecting points and tracks with a GPS and offloading them onto a computer gets a whole world of activities started!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

Teaching About Watersheds With Online and 3-D GIS, Part 2

2008-09-26T08:18:00Z

Another excellent resource to teach about watersheds from a spatial perspective is the EPA’s Surf Your Watershed site (http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm). For each watershed, environmental threats, streamflow, citizen-based action groups, and water quality data can be analyzed. Navigate upstream and downstream to foster understanding of the interconnectivity between adjacent watersheds, and to watersheds far away. Water Science for Schools (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/) helps cement the basics as well as calculating the astounding amount of rain that falls on user-specified area and covers it at a certain depth.

On the National Atlas web-GIS site (http://nationalatlas.gov), explorable water-related layers include aquifers, arsenic in groundwater, dams, streams and waterbodies, and watersheds. Use the National Atlas’ MapMaker function to create a map of watersheds and rivers, overlaid with the USGS realtime streamflow stations. Compare the streamflow and water quality on a gaging station at the headwaters of the Arkansas River in Colorado to the gaging station where the Arkansas flows into the Mississippi River. Why do such vast differences exist?

Perhaps the best way to teach about and understand watersheds is in 3-D. ArcGIS Explorer is ESRI’s free, easy-to-use 3-D virtual globe that can model spatial data such as that on National Atlas. Download the watershed boundaries and rivers, access ArcGIS Explorer, and add the watersheds and rivers. First, you may need to define the data’s projection as geographic inside ArcMap. Below, the watersheds looking west from the Great Plains to the Front Range of Colorado are shown in ArcGIS Explorer. A short time spent with this tool easily conveys the relationship between the nested rivers and the watershed boundaries.

To the south (left) of our ESRI office lies a ridge that does not seem significant on the ground, but because it divides the St. Vrain from the Clear Creek watershed, it appears as a red line. What are the closest watershed boundaries to your campus? Do any divide major drainage basins? Add cities, land use, and gaging stations. What urban and non-urban land use affects water quality in each watershed?

-Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

2008 ESRI International User Conference Plenary—Keynote Address

2008-09-25T09:17:00Z

Dr. Peter H. Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden and renowned botanist, environmentalist, and biodiversity expert gives the keynote address at the 2008 ESRI International User Conference.

Listen to the podcast [57:17 | 39.3 MB]

Fun With GIS, Using AEJEE: #2, Presidential Election

2008-09-22T09:34:00Z

Last week, I started a "Fun With GIS" series, using ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE), ESRI's free, downloadable, dual platform (Win/Mac), lightweight GIS tool. AEJEE's "HELP" menu contains a link to lessons and on-board data. Part of the "Fun" is being able to use material prepared by others. This week, we'll take a look at the U.S. Presidential Election.

Here is a zip file about the 2008 US presidential election. The file needs to be downloaded and uncompressed, and the folder placed where you can find it. The best place to put it is in the "ESRI/AEJEE/Data/lessons" folder. Then, begin AEJEE and open the project "election2008.axl" in the "ESRI/AEJEE/Data/lessons/election2008" folder.

The folder also contains two lesson documents as PDF files, plus an "export" PDF file. The lessons will walk you thru different explorations of the data. The "export.pdf" file can be used with Adobe Acrobat Reader and, if you use version 8.1 or higher, you can use the "layers" tool to explore the individual layers that make up the project.

The presidential election hinges on getting at least 270 electoral votes, in a "winner take all" arrangement in each state. Notice the variations in socioeconomic pattern, party strength, voter participation, flexibility over time, and relevant local elections. In which states would you advise the candidates to spend larger portions of their precious time and dollars? Make your predictions, and watch the battleground states!

- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Education Manager

Teaching About Watersheds With Online and 3-D GIS, Part 1

2008-09-19T08:08:00Z

Why teach about watersheds? As the area of land that drains all of the water falling into it into a common waterway, watersheds are connected to a larger system. Furthermore, each is a part of a larger watershed. Thus, watersheds (or drainage basins or catchments) are excellent means by which to teach about scale and interconnectivity. Like continents, some watershed boundaries are tied to obvious physical barriers, such as ridgelines. Others are more subtle, such as a rise of ground on campus that seems insignificant, but may separate river flow direction for hundreds of kilometers. Other boundaries are clearly human constructs, created to aid in classifying and managing watersheds. Much like the Asia-Europe “boundary,” the boundary between Watershed A and the one downstream from it is somewhat arbitrary, but useful. Watershed shapes and sizes help explain the severity of floods. Perhaps most importantly, watershed health is important to the sustainability of a region, and taken collectively, to the entire planet. I am encouraged by the signs in Austin indicating to passersby that they are entering a certain watershed and leaving another. Plaques on storm drains indicate the watershed to which the drain is connected. Such public awareness can only help all of us be aware that our everyday actions affect the watershed, and the watershed affects we who inhabit it.

Studying watersheds brings together hydrography, biology, geography, Earth Science, environmental studies, and within each discipline, touch on central themes. In Geography, for example, scale, connectivity, and human-environment interaction are central to the understanding of watersheds. John Wesley Powell’s definition of a watershed makes it clear that the human element is important: “that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community."

Rangitata River, New Zealand, Photograph by Joseph Kerski.

A useful animation from the Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum shows the relationship between landforms, precipitation, and rivers: http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec/module01/whatiswatershed.htm.

-Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager

Directions Media to host webinar and virtual job fair on GIS jobs

2008-09-18T21:00:00Z

Directions Media will host a series of three online virtual job fairs to bring together employers, job seekers, students and educators to discuss educational programs and job opportunities in geospatial technology.

The webinars/job fairs are free to attend. The first webinar is Tuesday, September 23 (2-3 pm EDT), and will feature a panel discussion with experts in the GIS industry and GIS education, including:

Joe Francica, Directions Media - Job Resources at Directions Media
Dean Howell, GISjobs Australia - International Job Opportunities
Rich Serby, GeoSearch - U.S. Job Opportunities
Dr. David DiBiase, Penn State Univ. - Online Training for GIS certificates and degrees
Dr. Fred Limp, Univ. Arkansas - on interdisciplinary geomatics degree programs
Michael Johnson, ESRI - jobs in software development, training, marketing, and more
Brian Samolyk, Zymac - Executive Recruitment and jobs in LBS

For more information or to register, visit http://www.directionsmag.com/careers/jobfairs.

Job Fair Dates:

Tuesday, September 23 (2008)
Tuesday, January 13 (2009)
Tuesday, May 12 (2009)