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

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 (including details on performing some functions listed below).

We’re moving through my Fav 7. Today, Redwood…the last stop. In exploring my other top parks, a theme rings out—geology and related threads. In a trip to this park, the geologic setting is very much evident but in my view, it’s impossible to not be humbled to silence and awe not by the landscape, but what’s on it—living things, the Redwoods. These trees, Sequoia sempervirens, represent the tallest and are among the longest and oldest living entities on planet Earth…and they only live in one place—along the US Pacific Coast from southern Oregon to Big Sur, California. In preparing for this entry, I did a bit of Web research on the trees, the park(s), and aspects such as the importance of fog as a key part of the overall water supply for the trees. Also, I was excited to see that the redwoods (range, threats, sustainability, history) were the October 2009 cover story of National Geographic magazine.

Using AGX, I do several things I’ve not covered in this series so far: Download and add a park boundary shape file from the National Park Service Data Clearinghouse (NOTE: Not all NPS data are ready for immediate direct use by AGX), plan a trip to a few key park sites, and check the weather for our trip.

To start, I create a Redwood folder for content (layers, Web research, views). Next, I add the NPS Klamath area parks boundary file and zoom to the Redwood NP extent. Where to go next?

A great place to stay in Crescent City, CA is the Hampton Inn. Using its address and ZIP (100 A St, 95531), I locate and add it to my map. The places I want to visit include the Hiouchi Information Center, the Stout Grove (by way of the Howland Hill Scenic Road), and the Klamath River Overlook. I use the Notes feature to pinpoint the places I want to explore.

Using the AGX Route function, I add the route sequence and execute the multistop route and derive a useable map for my day’s travels.

What’s the day’s weather like for the Redwoods? Check out the AGX Weather Forecast Add-in.

Stay tuned for the final installment in this series.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager

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 via ArcGIS Explorer (AGX). See other national park blog posts for more.

We’re moving through my Fav 7. Today, Acadia—the first national park east of the Mississippi River (1916). I have only been to Acadia once and then not for long enough. Regardless, it quickly got added to my list of favorites—rugged terrain, ocean, great vistas, rich woodland vegetation, and of course, geology. Touring the park you’re quick to recognize some interesting features and many of them expose a glacial past—U-shaped valleys, a North American fjord, erratics, and glacial polish and striations abound. Also, as the Pleistocene ice met the surface features, they encountered resistance—igneous, granitic objects like Mt Cadillac, the remains of an ancient caldera.

Using AGX, I tackle several things: Simply explore the park from a vantage not possible by ground observation to note some of its characteristics (including glacial features), use Web research to learn more about the park and its primary component—Mt Desert Island—and build a Background folder of Web content, identify an aspect of glacial extent in the region, and add some key Notes. (NOTE: I wanted to add an outside GIS layer or two on geology and glaciation but was unsuccessful in my initial searches. However, as I sent in this post, I remembered that the National Atlas has data on glacial limits. I will include the layer in a future expansion of this project.)

As with other parks, I begin by creating an Acadia folder for content. Next, I create contextual Views allowing roaming and easy return. My Web research nets a number of key references on the area’s glacial and bedrock geology. I add them as Links to a new Background folder. In the process, I discover that the 1 km thick ice sheet that covered the park extended, at maximum, some 370 miles into the Gulf of Maine and I want to highlight that using the Measure function to add a line of that distance to my map. I also add information in its associated Pop-up, again using lessons learned at the AGX Resource Center blog > text…HTML.

For the remainder of this first Acadian pass, I add a few photographic notes—one of mine as local content on the granitic shoreline and others focusing on glacially-influenced features using Web links.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager

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 via ArcGIS Explorer (AGX). See other national park blog posts for more.

We’re moving through my Fav 7. Today, Great Sand Dunes. The park is made up of various ecological components including mountains, grasslands, and other features but what drew me in originally and continually are the dunes These are the tallest sand dunes in North America, rising about 750 ft and covering a zone equal to about half the area of Washington, DC. Estimates place the dunes age at about 12,000 years. I also discovered the park includes a very intriguing creek system, Medano Creek, which pulses in the spring and early summer.

Adding to my growing AGX national parks project, I begin by creating a new Great Sand Dunes folder adding my park location as the first folder component. Next, I explore the park vicinity and discover a few things—the park is inside a large valley ringed by mountains and the park itself is up against one of these ranges. Through personal knowledge I know the names of these features. Using Find, I key in the three names, pinpoint the locations, and, with a right click, move them to my map.

Next, I create regional and park focused Views helping me set some context. From here, I want to be able to see the physical base map but also examine the park using the imagery layer. I go to Add Content > ArcGIS Online > search on “imagery” > Layers. I add the found layer to my map. Using the Manage Layers function (Home tab), I position the imagery layer just above my Basemap. Next, I use Transparency and Swipe (Tools tab) to peer between them.

In my Web research, I uncover a few key elements about the park and fascinating Medano Creek (text, videos, animations). I add these as links inside a new Background folder. Lastly, I add one of the videos to the map as a note. There is still much to discover about this park, but not right now. However, with the many components I have in the project, I can return to and expand it any time I want.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager

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 via ArcGIS Explorer (AGX). See other national park blog posts for more.

We’re moving through my Fav 7. Today, Arches. I began visiting the Moab, UT area in the early 1990s. Part of the Colorado Plateau, it is steeped in compelling natural features and geological wonder, including Arches National Park. I remember my first visit of seeing arches, fins, petrified sand dunes and found myself wanting to understand the why and how. In a nutshell, it involves uplift in the Uncompahgre Mountains (part of the ancestral Rockies) and subsidence in an area known as the Paradox Basin. The next parts of the story entail water, salt deposition, repetition, erosion, gravity, and time. Result: An area that is home to some 2,000 sandstone arches.

So, how can I introduce this place with AGX and share its rich geological story (more adeptly than my arm-chair skill set)? I decide to do three things: Encapsulate readings, video, and other content links inside an AGX folder, use the Find GNIS features add-in to discover arch locations, and isolate and display information about some favs.

In my Web research on the park and its stars, I found lots of content. But rather than simply drop these into the post (which I am) or put them into my Web browser favorites, I want to associate them permanently with my AGX project. Solution: I create a new folder (Background) and I place it inside my Arches folder. Inside this I create a series of links to reading 1, video, animation, reading 2, and 3D virtual tour (with thanks to Shannon White). These are now ready for presentation inside my park project and I also can e-mail the folder to another AGX user.

Next, I locate all of the arches inside Grand County, UT using the Find GNIS add-in, select all and move them to the map. From this folder, I select my fav 3 and move them to their own folder. Here’s a depiction of many of the arches along the east side of the Salt Valley—a view I set for future exploration (see graphic 1 above).

Finally, I decide to use two recent Bernie Szukalski AGX blog posts to add some HTML and pin the pop-ups for a couple fav arches.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

- George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager