All of us have probably enjoyed traveling on a scenic byway at one time in our lives. Think for a moment about your favorite road. What made that road especially scenic? My favorite might be the road that hugs the south side of Haleakala Volcano, high above the Pacific Ocean, on the island of Maui, where I explored after co-teaching GIS there ...

One of my favorite stories is that of William Smith, whose 20 years of labor resulted in the world’s first geologic map in 1815, chronicled in Winchester’s wonderful book The Map That Changed The World. After seeing his map of England and Wales while teaching GIS and GPS in the UK [PDF document], imagine my delight in reading the recent ...

Join ESRI and its educational partners in a ''Geospatial Zone'' of 6 exhibits at the NSTA convention! We will also host two  workshops on how to integrate GIS into Earth Science, and two workshops on how to integrate GIS into Environmental Science. Learn more at the ESRI Education Community calendar

Robyn Johnson's adventure continues. For approximately a week, she and others on a National Geographic expedition have meandered through the geography of the Antarctic Peninsula—on board ship, in Zodiacs and kayaks, and on foot. She has been documenting their various landfalls, anchorages, and rambles among islands, mainland, and ice. We can use ...

We’re tracking the experiences of our friend Robyn Johnson on a trip to Antarctica. This is the second post in what might turn into a broader series. As I was working on the first entry, a quick glance at the sweeping eastward arc of the tip of South America and similar sweep on the Antarctic Peninsula got me curious. The spine of the Andes runs ...

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 ...

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 ...