Latest Contributions by TomBaker

Every topic you teach happens somewhere. A fresh school year is the perfect moment to make that "where" visible - and free, browser-based mapping tools make it easier than ever. National Geographic MapMaker and Esri's GeoInquiries turn ordinary lessons into chances for students to ask spatial questions, spot patterns, and reason from real-world data. No logins, no installs, no cost - just maps that do the heavy lifting while students do the thinking. Maps also quietly build skills your students need everywhere else: reading evidence, comparing sources, and drawing conclusions from data instead of guessing. When a class can see how population, climate, or history play out across space, abstract concepts click into place. And because these tools run on Chromebooks, tablets, and phones alike, every student can dig in -no computer lab required. If you're looking for a place to start, three MapMaker collections are ready to drop straight into your fall plans. America 250 (grades 7-10, U.S. History) World Cultures and Geography (grades 6–8) Earth Science (grades 7-10) Otehr ready-to-use activities to try in August and September: Esri's classic 15-minute GeoInquiries are standards-aligned, cross-referenced to common textbooks, and free under Creative Commons. Here are six worth test-driving across the curriculum: Population dynamics (Environmental Science) - compare countries' age structures and calculate doubling times to predict long-term growth. Understanding globalization (Human Geography) - trace how advances in transportation and technology connect (and sometimes skip) places across the planet. Cradles of civilization (World History) - investigate why the earliest river-valley civilizations took root exactly where they did. Distance and scale (Human Geography) -discover why "as the crow flies" and real travel time are two very different things. Mining the world's most used minerals (Earth Science) - out where everyday materials come from and how long they'll last. Topography & our national heritage (Earth Science)- read the landscape of national parks through contour lines and elevation. Find these and dozens more, sorted by subject, in the Activities Gallery. For English/Literature teachers, check out Storygrounds – for maps supporting novels and short stories Give it a try this week You don't have to be a GIS expert to teach with maps -that's the whole point. Pick one lesson, put it up on the projector, and let students do the noticing. Ask what patterns they see, where those patterns break down, and why. From there, hand the map over and let them explore on their own. Spatial thinking is a skill they'll carry long after the final bell rings, and the best time to start building it is day one. ... View more

Every novel your students read happens somewhere. The Joads crawl west along a real Route 66. Jefferson waits in a jail a few miles from the quarter that raised him. Hà flees Saigon and crosses the widest ocean on earth to reach a small town in Alabama. Setting isn't backdrop — it's meaning. Yet most of us teach these books without ever showing students the ground they stand on. This is a growing library of free, ArcGIS Online map studies for American literature. Each one pairs a book with its real geography on an interactive map: as students read, the map moves with them, tracing a journey stop by stop or lighting up the handful of places that hold an entire world. There's nothing to install and no account to create. Open a study in a browser, project it, and the class is standing inside the story's landscape. What makes it more than a pretty map is the questioning built into every stop. Each place carries a three-level sequence drawn from the geographer's classic ladder — What is where? Why there? Why care? What's where? grounds students in location and description. Why is it there? pushes them into reasoning: why did the fever start at the waterfront, why is the courthouse at the center of the white town, why does a refugee route cross the Pacific eastward? Why care? turns the map back toward the reader — their own community, their own journeys, their own sense of place. You can check the questions you want and copy them straight into a handout, a discussion guide, or an exit ticket. The work of turning a map into a lesson is already done.   The payoff is real. Place-based reading deepens comprehension, sharpens spatial reasoning, and gives reluctant readers a concrete way into abstract themes. It bridges English and geography, history and civics. And it quietly teaches something bigger: that stories are rooted in actual places, that those places have histories, and that geography shapes the lives inside a book just as it shapes ours. The library spans forty popular works and counting — currently focused on American literature - road trips and rivers, rooted towns and refugee crossings, the Dust Bowl to the Deep South to a papaya tree in Saigon. Pick a book you already teach, and let your students walk its grounds. Explore the storygrounds collection. >> ... View more

ArcGIS Online gives students a real-world platform to make maps, analyze data, and tell stories with geography. But a default Publisher account isn't always the right fit. ArcGIS Online lets administrators build custom roles (but not rolls) from a base role type—usually the Publisher role type is the sweet spot for K–12. Giving students power Students create, not just consume. The Publisher role type unlocks the tools that make GIS exciting: publishing hosted web layers, building web maps and apps, and running spatial analysis. Basing a custom role on Publisher moves students from viewing maps to producing them, building real technical and analytical skills. Reducing unnecessary actions You keep the power and remove the risk. The full role includes privileges most K12 students don't need, like sharing content publicly with the world. A custom role keeps the creative tools while switching off the risky behaviors—preventing public sharing, blocking administrative actions, and limiting content that could expose student information. Management gets easier When every student shares the same custom role, access is consistent and troubleshooting drops. You can also scale roles with skill or age—start younger students tightly scoped, then expand as they grow. Administration stays simple. Define a role once and assign it to a whole class; updates apply everywhere instantly, saving educators and IT staff time. Variations on this idea Some school districts use a custom role for elementary students, and different custom roles for middle and high school students.  While other school districts may use a different custom role for students in CTE and workforce development programs.  See the ArcGIS Online docs to learn more about creating custom roles.   By building a custom role on the Publisher role type, K–12 educators give students freedom to create real GIS projects with the safety and control a school demands—hands-on learning with sensible boundaries. Learn more about administering ArcGIS Online and the ArcGIS for Schools bundle with these guides from Esri.  ... View more

With the release of increasingly advanced AI tools, like Claude Code, creating simple-to-intermediate geogames requires a strong concept for the game and general understanding of capacities of tools like ArcGIS Online.  Usually with a half-dozen prompts, a relatively interesting geogame can emerge. Geography learning does not begin with memorizing long lists of countries, capitals, and physical features. GeoGames can highlight an engaging approach—using games, ArcGIS Online maps, and geographic challenges to help students explore how places are connected. GeoGames can ask learners to identify locations, interpret visual clues, navigate maps, recognize geographic patterns, or solve problems connected to real places. These activities make students active participants rather than passive readers. As they play, students practice important skills such as spatial thinking, observation, decision-making, and geographic reasoning. Game-based activities can also provide immediate feedback and encourage students to try again after making a mistake. This makes GeoGames useful for introducing a topic, reviewing important concepts, supporting independent exploration, or adding a friendly classroom competition. Research suggests that well-designed geogames can increase motivation while supporting geographic knowledge and spatial learning. Follow the expanding list of AI-generated ArcGIS Online geogames at: https://arcg.is/0DqL1S0  Geogames currently listed include: Pindrop Duel (multi-player, middle school and above) Topo Trails  (single player, elementary and middle school) Package Dash (single player, middle school) Dead zones: Zombie escape USA (single player, middle school and above) California trail gold rush  (single player, upper elementary and above) Access Denied (multiplayer, high school) Continental (similar to the Risk boardgame, multi-player, high school and above) Terrra incognito (multi-player, AP human geography aligned) and more! ... View more

Imagine your students designing their dream playground — not on paper, not in their heads, but on a real interactive map of their actual school grounds. That's exactly what Build a Park makes possible. Student link: https://esriurl.com/buildapark Teacher link: https://trbaker.github.io/buildAPark (with lesson plans) Build a Park is a free, browser-based web app designed especially  for upper elementary students. It combines the intuitive fun of drag-and-drop design with the power of ArcGIS Online mapping technology. Students search for their school or a nearby park, zoom in, and then drag playground equipment icons directly onto the map — slides, swings, monkey bars, seesaws, gaga ball pits, koi ponds, and more. Each piece of equipment gets a short, editable label so students can personalize their designs. When they're done, they can take a screenshot of their finished park or save their design directly to ArcGIS Online as a professional web map.   Why This Matters in the Classroom Geography and spatial thinking are foundational skills, yet they can be hard to make tangible for younger learners. Build a Park bridges that gap by connecting something students already love — playgrounds — with real geographic tools used by professionals every day. When students place a swing set on the map, they're not just playing. They're making geodesign decisions about space, proximity, and layout. They're thinking about whether the sandbox should be near the benches so caregivers can supervise, or whether the basketball court needs enough buffer from the climbing wall. These are genuine design thinking and spatial reasoning challenges dressed up in a format that feels like play. Classroom Activity Ideas Grades 3–5: Design Your Dream Playground Have students search for your school, zoom into the schoolyard, and design a new playground for the empty field out back. Ask them to write a short paragraph explaining their choices — why did they place equipment where they did? Who are they designing for? Grades 4–6: Compare and Contrast Assign students different parks in your city or town. Have each student design an "improved" version of their assigned park. Then compare designs as a class — what did different students prioritize? How does the neighborhood around a park influence what equipment belongs there? Cross-Curricular: Math Integration Challenge students to place exactly 10 pieces of equipment and estimate how much space their park takes up using the map scale. How many square meters might a slide need? How close is too close for two swings? Saving and Sharing Work One of Build a Park's most powerful features for teachers is the Save to ArcGIS Online function. When students save their park, it creates a hosted feature layer and a web map in their ArcGIS Online account — the same format used by GIS professionals worldwide. Their saved maps are automatically accessible in ArcGIS Map Viewer and National Geographic MapMaker, making it easy to share, present to the class, or submit as an assignment. Students can also take a screenshot of their finished design, add a custom title, and download it as a PNG — perfect for a classroom gallery wall or a digital portfolio.     Getting Started Build a Park runs entirely in a web browser — no installation, no plugins. To save a map, students need an ArcGIS Online account, but the screenshot feature works without signing in at all. It's spatial thinking, design thinking, and digital citizenship — all wrapped up in a playground. Note: This is not an Esri created or supported web app but an experimental, AI-generated webpage that helps students build. It uses several ArcGIS Online services and allows saving into ArcGIS Online. ... View more

This post will be regularly updated before and after ISTE 2026. Join thousands of innovative educators and explore the future of teaching and learning through hands-on experiences, inspiring keynote speakers, and practical classroom strategies. Whether you are interested in artificial intelligence, digital mapping, virtual reality, STEM, student creativity, or instructional technology, ISTE Live offers opportunities to discover tools and ideas that can immediately support student engagement and achievement. ISTE Live 2026 is also a chance to connect with a global community of educators who are passionate about innovation and meaningful learning. Collaborate with teachers, technology leaders, curriculum specialists, and industry experts while exploring new resources, attending interactive sessions, and gaining fresh ideas to bring back to your school or district. Orlando provides the perfect setting for a high-energy event focused on preparing students and educators for the future. Join Esri int he exhibit hall in booth #1659 ... View more

Top Pedagogical Mistakes Teachers Make When Using Digital Maps in the Classroom (And How to Avoid Them) One of the biggest mistakes teachers make when teaching with digital maps is giving answers too quickly instead of allowing students time to investigate on their own. When teachers explain every pattern immediately, students miss the chance to practice observation and critical thinking. Students often learn more when they are asked to make predictions and support their ideas with evidence from the map. Inquiry becomes stronger when discovery comes before explanation.    video Another common mistake is rushing through the map experience. Students need time to zoom in, pan across regions, turn layers on and off, and closely examine symbols or labels. If the lesson moves too fast, many students only see the surface of the map and miss important relationships. Slowing down helps students notice details they might otherwise overlook. Teachers also sometimes skip the questioning process. A digital map by itself does not automatically create learning unless students are guided with thoughtful prompts. Questions such as “What do you notice?”, “Why might this happen here?”, and “What pattern do you see?” encourage deeper thinking. Strong questions turn map viewing into active investigation. Another mistake is limiting student discussion during the activity. When students talk with partners or small groups, they hear new ideas and practice explaining their reasoning. Discussion can reveal different interpretations of the same data and help students refine their thinking. Silent individual work has value, but conversation often deepens understanding. Some teachers wait to use digital maps until they feel they know everything about the technology. This often delays meaningful classroom use because no teacher ever needs to master every tool before starting. Students can still learn a great deal from simple map activities using only a few basic features. Growth usually happens by trying small lessons first and learning alongside students. Finally, some teachers treat digital maps as only a technology tool instead of a thinking tool. The real value of digital maps is not just clicking buttons or navigating software menus. Maps help students analyze data, solve problems, recognize spatial patterns, and use evidence to make conclusions. When used this way, digital maps become powerful learning tools rather than simple screen activities. ... View more

This blog will be regularly updated through the remainder of 2026 to reflect available A250 instructional materials. The US Declaration of Independence was officially signed on August 2, 1776, by most of the Continental Congress delegates, nearly a month after it was adopted on July 4, 1776. While 56 delegates eventually signed the document, most signatures were added on August 2 in Philadelphia, with others signing later. (source: National Archives) The classroom activities and readings below will help teach the events in and around the signing of the Declaration and the American Revolution. Thirteen colonies Activity: The geography of the 13 Colonies (MapMaker) Activity: The 13 Colonies and slave trade (MapMaker) Activity: The 13 Colonies – 1700s (GeoInquiry) Pre American Revolution Activity: The war before independence (GeoInquiry) Reading: Revolutionary Boston  Reading: Origins of The Declaration of Independence Reading: The signers of the Declaration of Independence … and Enslavement The American Revolutionary War Reading: Key events in the American Revolutionary War Map: Mapping the American Revolution Map: Why Yorktown Articles of Confederation and Constitutional Convention Reading: The New Jersey and Virginia Plans     ... View more

The end of the school year is a special time. Testing is over. Summer breaks and vacations are being planned.  It’s getting warmer and summer sports are in full swing. And, most importantly, getting kids to focus on learning is really difficult.  Listed below are five fun activities for kids to do with digital maps – planning for summer fun or reflecting on the learning over the previous nine months.   First, try a “Map Your Summer Vacation” activity. Ask students to plan a dream summer trip using a digital map. They can choose a destination, map their travel route, and add a few places they would visit along the way. Students can include photos or short descriptions of each stop. It’s a fun way to practice geography and spatial thinking while students start thinking about summer. Second, create a hidden treasure map challenge. Students design a treasure hunt using a digital map of the school or local community. They place markers that represent clues and write riddles that guide classmates from one location to another. Then groups try to solve each other’s treasure maps. This is a great activity for problem solving and map skills. Third, play a quick game called “Guess the Place From Space.” Show students a satellite image from a digital map and ask them to guess where it is in the world. It might be the Grand Canyon, the pyramids of Egypt, Mount Fuji, or a famous stadium. Students use clues from the landscape to figure out the location. This works great as a five-minute warm-up or review activity. Fourth, have students map the most interesting places on Earth. Ask them to explore the world map and mark amazing locations such as the tallest mountains, deepest ocean trenches, major volcanoes, or unusual landforms. As a class, you build a shared map of fascinating places around the planet. Finally, try an activity called “Map the Year.” Students create a digital map showing places connected to topics they studied during the year. They might mark Civil War locations, ancient civilizations, major rivers, or tectonic plate boundaries. At each location they add a short note explaining something they learned. These kinds of activities are perfect for the last month of school because they are creative, interactive, and easy to run even when students are ready for summer break.   ... View more

Join the Esri Schools team as we lead two new webinar series at the National Council for Geographic Education. National Geographic Mapmaker The first series walks educators through no-login and logged in uses of the National Geographic Mapmaker by Esri.   Link to Part 1 of the Mapmaker series.   Link to Part 2 of the Mapmaker series. ArcGIS StoryMaps The second webinar series focuses on the instructional uses of ArcGIS StoryMaps across K12 education.  The second part of the StoryMap webinar series focuses on creating your own storymaps and sharing them with students.    Link to part 1 of the StoryMap series. Link to part 2 of the StoryMap series. ... View more

  http://esriurl.com/tvc   The teacher video challenge is an opportunity for K12 teachers to showcase their use of ArcGIS Online in classroom instruction for the chance to be recognized.   How it works Create a 1-minute video highlighting how you use ArcGIS Online (including MapMaker, StoryMaps, Survey123, etc) in your K12 classroom with students (United States only at this time).   Post your 1-minute video publicly to a video sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo.  Complete the self-nomination form.     Entries are evaluated on a rolling basis. Your entry will be reviewed the quarter it is submitted and several times after (unless/until you are selected).  If selected, you will work with the Esri K-12 staff to create a 5-minute video, taking a deeper dive into how you use ArcGIS Online in your teaching.   Several example winning 5-minute videos can be seen at https://esriurl.com/tvc. Once the 5-minute video (and paperwork) are completed, Esri will send you a stipend.   For 2026, we expect to draw winners quarterly and will give special attention to those that include MapMaker in their use of ArcGIS Online in their classroom. If you have previously won, you may submit a new self-nomination with video but preference will be given to new submitters.   Submit your entry today!   Overview: https://esriurl.com/tvc Self-nomination form: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/a8eb37dc9fb44655bf9b56a9276a1b42  Previous submitters/winners map: https://edresources.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=18d7d7027249403a938aed0f15b7da6f  ... View more

While there are countless unsung classroom heroes that use GIS, we’ve picked five to highlight, from our user success stories in the past few years.  These stories highlight the transformative role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology in modernizing K–12 education across the United States. Through partnerships with organizations like the Missouri Botanical Garden and universities like Lehigh, educators are replacing traditional textbooks with interactive mapping tools to study local ecology, history, and social issues. Students utilize specialized software and hardware, such as drones and infrared sensors, to tackle real-world challenges like tracking wildfire risks to unhoused populations or analyzing watershed patterns. The initiatives emphasize professional development for teachers and provide students with industry-standard credentials, bridging the gap between classroom learning and future careers. Ultimately, these programs foster spatial literacy, enabling young learners to visualize complex data and better understand the world around them. The five stories Empowering Ecological Education with Digital Mapping Tools The Litzsinger Road Ecology Center serves as a vital hub for place-based ecological education, bridging the gap between natural environments and digital analysis for students and teachers. Under the leadership of Dr. Bob Coulter, the center utilizes GIS to help young learners visualize complex environmental data, such as watershed patterns and climate change projections. This case study highlights how integrating real-world field experience with modeling tools empowers children to investigate their local ecosystems while contributing to meaningful scientific dialogue. Ultimately, the program aims to make the world more intriguing for students by using technology as a lens to deepen their understanding of the natural world and prepare them for future challenges. GIS in the Classroom Provides an Innovative Method to Teach Social Studies Educator Chris Bunin has transformed traditional social studies by integrating geospatial technology into the classroom, moving beyond textbooks to provide students with hands-on technical experience. By utilizing ArcGIS software and a fleet of drones, Bunin allows his students to conduct field research and data mapping that connects historical concepts to the modern world. This innovative curriculum does more than teach history; it prepares students for the workforce by helping them earn professional industry credentials and FAA pilot licenses. Ultimately, the program demonstrates the diverse career applications of geographic information systems, proving that spatial literacy is a valuable asset in fields ranging from environmental protection to healthcare. Geologist Turned Educator Gets GIS for Every West Virginia K–12 Student Drawing from her professional background as a geologist, Dr. Erika Klose has successfully integrated GIS into the West Virginia public school system to provide students with a deeper spatial understanding of data. By transitioning from complex desktop software to accessible, web-based applications like ArcGIS Online, the state has empowered educators across various grade levels to connect academic lessons with real-world geographic contexts. These digital tools allow students to move beyond passive learning, engaging instead in active scientific investigation through projects such as tracking wildlife migrations or competing in digital storytelling contests. Ultimately, this initiative aims to make data literacy a natural part of a student's intellectual toolkit, bridging the gap between K-12 education and the advanced requirements of college and career pathways. High School Students Use Mapping Tech to Protect the Unhoused from Wildfires This article explores how students from Anderson W. Clark Magnet High School utilized GIS and infrared sensors to address the dual crises of homelessness and wildfires in California. By building and deploying a CubeSat prototype attached to a weather balloon, the students identified heat signatures of unhoused encampments hidden within dense, fire-prone vegetation. The resulting interactive web maps were shared with the Los Angeles Fire Department to facilitate more efficient emergency evacuations and rescue operations. Ultimately, the text highlights the power of hands-on technical education in empowering youth to develop innovative, data-driven solutions for community safety and humanitarian aid. Lehigh University's Teacher Education Program Illustrates Why GIS Is a Powerful Classroom Tool Lehigh University is revolutionizing K–12 instruction by training educators to integrate GIS  into diverse academic subjects. By fostering spatial literacy, the program empowers students to move beyond textbooks and use inquiry-based learning to analyze complex real-world issues like climate change, public health, and urban history. Through strategic collaborations and grant-funded research, the university provides teachers with the technical skills and tools necessary to bridge the gap between abstract data and local, community-based problem solving. Ultimately, this initiative aims to make geospatial reasoning a fundamental part of the modern curriculum, preparing the next generation for advanced careers in STEM and environmental fields. ... View more

Studies examining geography instruction have found that integrating reading and geographic learning can improve reading comprehension, particularly for English Language Learners, because geographic tasks often require students to interpret written descriptions of places, environments, and relationships, build background knowledge, and make connections between text and spatial representations - skills that reinforce literacy development. For example, research on GeoLiteracy programs in elementary and middle school classrooms indicates that geography-based learning can help maintain or improve students’ reading comprehension outcomes, showing that geography education and literacy support each other in meaningful ways. In preparing instructional resources, there are from time to time, aspects of those materials that ultimately go unused.  In the linked storymap below, we have recombined some of those supplemental resources that support reading in world geography, human geography, and Earth science.  The storymap includes about 90 thematic word games, 45 vocabulary lists, and more. Explore the storymap!   Learn more about reading and geography.  https://asu.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/linking-geography-to-reading-and-english-language-learners-achiev https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8063904 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200621000764 ... View more