Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

How can we more fully and deeply understand our planet, augment our ability to improve its resiliency and sustainability, and, while doing so, gain key skills in demand in the workforce?  A new Digital Earth set of online courses has been developed and placed online by my colleagues at the University of Denver and I.  We invite you to join in on this exciting opportunity to deepen your investigation of Earth processes, patterns, and trends through geotechnologies.  In addition, given the approachable and engaging way these courses are structured, they are ideal for sharing with others in your circle of influence who might think of geotechnologies as "just maps" or somehow have an outdated or incomplete notion of why GIS matters.  To find these courses:  1.  Go to https://www.edx.org/ and search for GIS > Expand the results and select Digital Earth, or:  2.  Go directly to: DUX: MicroMaster's Geographic Information Systems [edx.org]  To learn more about the University of Denver's GIS master's program, see:  https://universitycollege.du.edu/gis/geographic-information-science-masters-concentration/  Two courses are already available, as follows: Digital Earth:  This course aims to establish a solid foundation in utilizing mapping tools by teaching the creation, symbolization, and application of GIS-based digital maps for problem-solving and communication on pivotal 21st-century issues. Participants will develop essential skills in spatial analysis through practical exercises, and more critically, gain insights into the technological and societal impacts of these tools. This understanding will enable learners to navigate and contribute to 21st-century society effectively using these tools and perspectives. Digital Earth, Deeper Dive:  This course follows the Digital Earth course and provides a deeper dive into the theoretical foundations and practical applications for social and ecological problem-solving through the application of geotechnologies. Geotechnologies include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), examining the world through imagery collected by drones, aircraft, and satellites (remote sensing), and positioning from GPS or Global Navigation Satellite Systems. A selection of images and activities from the Digital Earth courses, or see them here.  What makes these online geotechnology courses different?  These courses approach GIS in an applied, action-oriented way:  Right away, you begin investigating diverse phenomena and issues such as the HDI Human Development Index by country, historical tornado pattern in the USA, take a field survey and see the results instantly on a map and dashboard, and explore issues of energy, water, population change, human health, natural hazards, and others using web GIS maps and apps.  Along the way, you will learn some underlying fundamentals such as how to map a table, how to create predominance, relationship, and pie chart maps, how to consider map projections, but the focus is on rolling up your sleeves to map and investigate, right from the start.  You will use ArcGIS Online, including the Map Viewer, instant apps, ArcGIS Survey123, story maps, Color Brewer, cartograms, and other tools, all using a standard web browser without having to sign in or make an account anywhere but in the course EdX platform itself.  In short, these courses embrace the "modern GIS" approach that my colleagues and I have been encouraging, focusing on web GIS tools, data as services, creating web maps and apps, as detailed here. This program delves into the theory and art of map making, a practice that has evolved over thousands of years and has been revolutionized by modern computer technology. It is designed to immerse students in the use of advanced computer techniques to address technical design issues, enabling them to create accurate and meaningful automated geographic mapping products. Through a series of comprehensive hands-on exercises, students will utilize Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to produce typical GIS mapping products, thereby gaining valuable practical experience in the application of geotechnologies. The courses within this program provide a robust combination of theoretical foundations and practical applications aimed at solving complex social and ecological problems through the use of geotechnologies. These geotechnologies encompass GIS, remote sensing (which involves examining the world through imagery collected by drones, aircraft, and satellites), and positioning systems such as GPS and Global Navigation Satellite Systems. Students will engage with a broad range of social and environmental themes through an array of readings, videos, and interactive exercises. This multifaceted approach ensures that students learn the critical fundamentals of mapping tools, including projections, symbology, classification, and analysis. Throughout the program, students will not only build web mapping applications, such as interactive dashboards and multimedia story maps, but they will also have the opportunity to collect and map their own field data. This practical experience is crucial in helping students develop the skills and confidence needed to use maps as powerful analytical tools. By engaging in these activities, students will learn how to effectively communicate complex data and spatial information through visually compelling and informative maps. The program emphasizes the importance of using geotechnologies to address real-world problems and promotes the development of solutions that contribute to a more sustainable and resilient future. By the end of the program, students will have a deep understanding of how to leverage these technologies to analyze and interpret spatial data, making them well-equipped to tackle a variety of challenges in both social and ecological contexts.  There are free and payment-for-additional-credit options.  To see more detail and/or to register for Digital Earth, see: https://www.edx.org/learn/gis-geographic-information-systems/university-of-denver-dux-university-college-digital-earth  To see more detail and/or to register for Digital Earth, Deeper Dive, see: https://www.edx.org/learn/earth-sciences/university-of-denver-digital-earth-deeper-dive This program prepares students to be leaders in the field of geotechnologies, providing them with the knowledge and practical skills necessary to make significant contributions to society. Whether they are interested in environmental conservation, urban planning, disaster response, or any other field that relies on spatial data, students will find that this program equips them with the tools to create positive change through the power of mapping and geographic analysis. These courses can be a part of a GIS MicroMasters program that you could pursue at the University of Denver, enabling you to gain credit that will count toward a University of Denver certificate or degree.  Taking these courses position you well for advancing in your career because spatial thinking will be in your mind and GIS skills will be on your toolbelt.  These perspectives and skills are increasingly in demand in government, nonprofit organizations, industry, and academia.   We plan to follow up these two courses for a deeper dive in a set of two more courses called Planet Earth. I invite you to take these courses and tell others about them.  I look forward to your reactions! --Joseph Kerski    ... 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After a quarter century after GIS Day began in 1999, GIS Day is still here.  In fact, GIS is more important than ever to our society because of (1) local-to-global challenges our communities and societies face, including natural hazards, energy, water, population pressure, human health, natural resource demand, public safety, education, and much more, and (2) the subsequent need for data-driven, thoughtful decisions made with the spatial and holistic perspective offered by the use of GIS tools and spatial data.  The contents of this essay are also available in this video. GIS is used in the daily lives of people all over the world--as they check today's weather, plan a ride share or when to take the next bus or light rail, tracking a package delivery, recording their walk or cycle ride on their fitness app, plan their trip to the public library or to a friend's house, plan today's dinner (supply chain management enabling food to be grown, processed, packaged, and shipped), or read by electric light (the utility companies using GIS to manage their lines and services).  All around them, people use GIS to plan the next urban greenspace, where to plant crops in which fields, set up wildfire watch announcements, schedule the needed repair to a water main, and ship needed medical supplies. Yet in these and dozens of other ways in which GIS is used in everyday lives and in daily decisions, GIS still remains relatively unknown by the general public--even by one's own co-workers, friends, and colleagues.   This is where GIS Day can help.  How? GIS Day is a day set aside each November to help people understand the value of spatial thinking, mapping, and spatial analysis to their community and to society as a whole.  Given the changes our world has experienced since that first GIS Day in 1999, GIS is more important than ever.   Since that time, a global pandemic, significant natural hazards, supply chain disruptions, and other events have raised global awareness of the relevance of GIS as a decision making toolset that enables people to build healthy communities, resilient cities, and a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient planet.  Thus, GIS can be justifiably celebrated as never before, as an essential technology for applying geography and spatial thinking.  One of the ways to celebrate GIS is through hosting or participating in a GIS Day event. This could be a hands-on workshop, tour of your facility, presentation, fun for all ages family event, video, contest, or another way you and your organization could highlight what you do with GIS, and the positive impacts it has to the people and land that you serve.  You could do this face-to-face, online, or in a hybrid setting. View the essay below and this video and the GIS Day website for ideas on how to have a successful GIS Day event.   This year, GIS Day will be held on Wednesday 20 November 2024, although you are certainly free to choose another day that meets your organization's needs in scheduling a GIS Day event. Use this GIS Day opportunity to go big!  Think creatively about how to highlight the good people in your organization, how you use GIS, and the positive difference it is making to your community, and hence why it will matter to your audience.  The presentations you create could serve double-duty:  They could also serve to highlight what your department or organization does, that could be important the next time your budget cycle is renewed, or when your CEO, city manager, or others ask you about what you do and the impact you are having.  Again, I think this is even more important given the often behind-the-scenes "hidden" work that GIS so frequently is.  Consider using engaging tools such as ArcGIS Hub, the ArcGIS Experience Builder, or a story maps collection as the front page for your event! Highlights of GIS Day events around the world showing some of the creative possibilities.  Because GIS is a visual technology, consider conducting a hands-on workshop or presentation!  Focus on a tool that you are excited about, or perhaps a data set that your organization is proud to have created.  Need additional ideas?  Try this GIS Day story map from Esri, or my own story map, here.   Consider starting with the Esri National Geographic MapMaker, here.  It's easy to use, fast, fun, and engaging, with dozens of layers about climate, population, river systems, biomes, and much more, in 2D and 3D.   Show off some of your favorite maps and apps in the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.  I guarantee that nobody looking at the MapMaker or the Living Atlas maps and apps will say "that's boring!" The Mapping Hour is a series of hour-long videos that my team created that you could use as is, or for ideas on tools and approaches to teach and instructional guidelines.  Each Mapping Hour video focuses on how to use an aspect of the ArcGIS platform, such as ArcGIS Survey123 or ArcGIS Online Map Viewer, in teaching and learning.  GeoInquiries and Learn ArcGIS lessons provide additional content.   Make it spatial!  See these stories here and here that I compiled from a few of the thousands of GIS Day events over the past years from all over the world to discover what people have done to make this day engaging, fun, and informative.  Make it interactive!  Create a map-based quiz, or use the existing ones that I created such as Name That Place from satellite images, Name That Place from ground photographs, Sounds of Planet Earth, or Weird Earth.  I created each of these using the capabilities of ArcGIS Online, such as Instant Apps.  Some are in story map form, such as this Wyoming Map Quiz.   Oh, what's not to love?  Place and space! Try this Pioneers of Geography and GIS treasure hunt story map quiz that I created with the help of our Esri development team for GIS Day:   https://esri.github.io/treasure-hunt-app/?edition=pioneers-geo-and-GIS   Solve a series of questions--each focuses on a geography or GIS pioneer and hints at a location somewhere in the world where the pioneer was born or worked.  To answer the question, frame the solution within the viewfinder using the map's pan/zoom functions.  You could use it for an icebreaker, a contest, or as a fun break in between longer presentations. The answers to the 25 questions include Aryabhata, Zheng He, Dawn Wright, Roger Tomlinson, and … oh, I’m not going to give you any more answers!  You need to take the quiz yourself!   For a graphic, see below.  If you’re stumped you can skip the guessing.  For more, see this collection of thematic Treasure Hunts.  You could even use Kahoot or another fun online quiz format in conjunction with maps and images.   GIS Day pioneers of geography treasure hunt quiz. Put your GIS skills to the test with my GIS-themed crossword puzzle.   Consider these clues:  16 Across:  A spatial term denoting features that overlay, or ‘cross’ each other.   40 Across:  Type of thematic map in which areas are symbolized in proportion to a variable that represents a summary of a geographic characteristic within each area.  69 Down:  University of Kansas cartographer George, who devised the natural breaks classification.  295 Down:  The standard deviation of the residuals (prediction errors).  How are you doing so far?  Use this crossword in your event as a contest, awarding kudos to the person or team to get the most clues in, say, 5 minutes.    GIS crossword puzzle--hundreds of clues from easy to difficult are included to test your GIS expertise! The resources pages on the GIS Day site provide additional lessons, posters, videos, and other items you could use.   Need more inspiration?  OK, how about 101 more ideas including sending a thank-you note to a GIS or geography teacher and producing a GIS Day song.  But definitely do not watch any of my own off-key geo-GIS songs! Once you've gathered your team, and planned what you will do, register your event on the GIS Day site.  Now you need to publicize your event!  Will your event be only for internal employees, or for the wider community?  If the latter, consider your city or regional GIS community's web pages or listservs or social media to post.  Also consider posting to your regional chapter of the Esri Young Professionals Network (https://www.esri.com/en-us/about/ypn/overview).  But don't stop at the GIS community--reach those who have never heard of GIS, too!  Via your local school board, public library, city hall, arts district, or other community groups.   If you don't want to host an event, no problem!  You could use the web map on the GIS Day site to find an event of interest to you, and join that event! Stay tuned, follow us on Twitter/X, and visit the GIS Day website often to hear more about opportunities for the global GIS Day community to come together to celebrate GIS Day this year. What will you do to host a your virtual or face-to-face GIS Day event or attend an event this year? ... View more

The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in education around the world is a relatively recent phenomenon. Settled almost entirely since 1990, the landscape is marked by pedagogical and technological trailblazing by enterprising educators who have overcome numerous challenges to teach about GIS and teach with GIS. They do so to promote spatial thinking throughout education. They have done so in a wide variety of settings, to students of all ages from primary, secondary, college, university, and after-school programs, in lecture halls, computer laboratories, on mobile devices, and in the field.  Our Esri education team has been actively supporting these educators and this movement since 1992, in partnership and in collaboration with the community of educators, globally.  For all of the variety of the ways GIS is being used in education, a remarkably small number of themes are common. In the paper and set of 3 videos below, I identify those themes that have helped to create a growing, vibrant international GIS education community. These include a focus on problem-solving, inquiry-driven pedagogical techniques that use real-world data and geotechnologies to analyze spatial patterns on a local to global scale. They focus on classroom, community, and careers, and promote scholarship, citizenship, and artisanship. Yet despite progress over the past 35 years, not only do challenges remain, but forces are acting that could confine spatial thinking in education to a relatively small part of educational practice and research through 2030. These forces include an overreliance upon standardized assessments, budgetary constraints that curtail necessary components such as fieldwork and IT support, a lack of a curricular fit or home for GI (Geographic Information), and a continued reliance on funding and staffing educational institutions by disciplinary and departmental models which at times hinder interdisciplinary tools and approaches such as those offered through GIS.  The videos and paper makes recommendations about what needs to happen to advance the use of GIS in education at all levels. This includes establishing a disciplinary home for GIS throughout education, an increased emphasis on portfolios and other authentic assessment instruments, and the funding and establishment of a center that promotes research in the implementation and effectiveness of GIS in education. The future of GIS in education will also be impacted by community science or volunteered geographic information, the Web GIS environment, mobile computing, open data portals, and open application programming interfaces (APIs). Spatial analysis with GIS addresses the essential issues of the 21st Century. Natural and human-caused hazards, urban sprawl, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, public safety, water quality and availability, biodiversity loss, healthy economies, and other key and complex issues of our time can be better understood through the spatial framework. Spatial thinking and analysis must take place throughout education, not only to have a positive impact on teaching and learning, but also on society as a whole, to benefit people and the planet. If this does not occur, we will be on uncertain footing in education, and we will be on precarious ground as a global society. As I state in the following series of videos, and in a paper that follows, without spatial thinking and spatial analysis in education and in society, we will essentially be sleepwalking into the future. Part 1 of 3:  https://youtu.be/7PaEEJOENHI?si=SlYFdIYYLIHb-Wwm  Part 2 of 3:  https://youtu.be/YOv8REdT2go?si=0avo5KMQ1X34rtGD  Part 3 of 3:  https://youtu.be/nXuzxDVFkE8?si=hHCjd4-vZyE2Wifd  https://gispoint.de/fileadmin/user_upload/paper_gis_open/537510017.pdf is a complete article, expanding on the themes in the videos that I have authored on this subject, for those who want to dig deeper into what I feel is an important topic. What do you think we should be doing as a community to actively support, promote, and encourage spatial thinking and analysis in education, with implications for the greater society? I welcome your comments!   --Joseph Kerski  ... View more

GIS is changing, and perhaps the tools and workflows changing GIS the most these days is Artificial Intelligence, or AI.  I conducted a hands-on AI GIS (or "Geo AI") workshop recently and am using this space to share the contents with the wider community.  The slides are posted at this location and contain: 1.  The definitions and concepts around Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Large Language Models, and Geo AI.  2.   How GeoAI is changing GIS and workflows in organizations, and related career pathways. 3.  Why instructors should be teaching with AI tools. 4.  How instructors can teach with AI tools inside the ArcGIS ecosystem.  I advocate starting with Gen AI Survey123 tools and continuing with ArcGIS Online, and then to ArcGIS Pro.  Start with the pretrained models; plenty of them exist, are compelling, and are important for all of us to understand.  5.  How students can learn with AI tools inside the ArcGIS ecosystem. 6.  Two activities - GenAI Survey123 field survey generation, and feature extraction from imagery, are included in this workshop, with links to many more. Included in the workshop are points of discussion about the benefits and the concerns related to AI, such as below: AI presents us amazing capabilities and has already transformed decision-making and the makeup of much day-to-day GIS work.    We don’t get to go backwards in technology: AI tools are here to stay and are remarkable.   We never have been able to go backwards in GIS or other tools; there is no "click here to run this tool in ArcInfo Version 6" or "click here to do this overlay with scribecoat and peelcoat" (to date me even further!). Use AI tools wisely: Understand what goes into each model and algorithm.  Read the metadata.  If you are a creator of these tools, make sure you populate the metadata for others to use. Also, as AI tools can be quite complex, make sure you explain them as clearly as possible.  Metadata doesn't help if nobody understands it. I created a video reflection on the topic of AI in GIS education, here:  •  https://youtu.be/rnofTJEGw_0?si=FBKhlEWc9zjEidmW On the Spatial Reserves data blog,  https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com, we have been writing about where can I find geospatial data, how do I know if it is any good, and societal implications for many years. These implications include copyright, location privacy, ethics, and AI.   We have recently written about an AI powered open data portal:  https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com/2024/05/13/aipowered-open-data-portal-for-washington-dc/  and reviewed Dr Dawn Wright's work and writings about Why AI needs to be digitally resilient: https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com/2024/04/15/reflections-on-why-ai-needs-to-be-digitally-resilient/ In the workshop, I include resources on how to keep learning in this rapidly advancing area, such as one that I consider to be an excellent first one-stop for GeoAI in education, the resource my teammate Canserina Kurnia created, entitled "Unlocking the power of Geospatial AI": • https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/resources-for-unlocking-the-power-of-geospatial-ai/bap/1293098 Several Learn ArcGIS Lessons already exist in the lesson library at https://learn.arcgis.com. These include classifying objects using Deep Learning in ArcGIS Pro:  • https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/6410c0524d750615175c0b58/classifying-objects-using-deeplearning-in-arcgis-pro/  I thank my colleagues inside and outside Esri who are blazing pathways in this field, and to those at Esri who helped me prepare the contents for this workshop.  I trust that this will be useful to the readers of this education community blog.  ... View more

I created 16 new lessons to support a fundamentals of GIS short course.   I have rigorously tested, taught, and refined these lessons over the past few months and wanted to make them available to the wider community so that you can use or modify them for your own purposes.  The lessons are aimed at undergraduate-level learners, but I have also used them for the GIS professional community, and one could also use them for upper secondary school students.  The content covers are wide variety of themes (water, population, hazards, more) and scales (local to global), and is focused on web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) GIS, specifically, ArcGIS Online. The tools used include the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer, ArcGIS StoryMaps, dashboards, Survey123, instant apps, and other tools. The goal is that working through these activities, you will gain confidence in mapping, spatial thinking, working with spatial data, spatial analysis, saving, sharing, and communicating the results of your work. To access all content, see this ArcGIS StoryMap collection: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/b9292c1494224ff8bf8ebd31424ff917    A StoryMap collection was the perfect tool to use to allow learners to quickly and easily access the activities, which are accessed through 3 story maps that you will see in the collection.  A collection also allows me to easily update the content as needed.  I encourage you to create a StoryMap collection to support your own instruction.  Alternatively, attached to this essay are 3 PDFs containing the 16 lessons.     The short course content is as follows: Part 1:  Spatial is Special!                                                              Ways to define and conceptualize GIS                                                            What are maps?  Why are they relevant to 21st Century decision making?                                                            GIS software and organizations                                                            The whys of where                                                            Activity 1:  Spatial and attribute characteristics                                                            The modern GIS platform:   Maps, layers, apps, data services Part 2: Let’s Get Mapping!                                                            Activity 2:  A field survey, map, dashboard, and story map                                                             Activity 3:  Symbology:  Single symbol, graduated symbol, predominance                                                                maps, pie charts, ring chart maps                                                            Activity 4:   Creating expressions; analyzing change over space and time                                                            Activity 5:  Filtering data and working with isolines Part 3:  Investigating Relationships                                                            Activity 6:  Bivariate and relationship mapping                                                            Activity 7:  Analyzing relationships with scatter plots and maps  Part 4:  How to get Data into a GIS                                                             Activity 8:  Mapping a spreadsheet.  Discussion:  Vector data, imagery,                                                                      raster data                                                             Activity 9:   Creating a field survey and online map                                                             Mappy Time!  Discuss favorite maps and map-related books.   Part 5:  Communicating Your Results                                                              Demonstrate:  Web Mapping applications including Living Atlas of the                                                                      World apps                                                            Activity 10:  Creating a dashboard                                                            Activity 11:  Creating a story map                                                            Activity 12:  Spatial Analysis I:  Natural Hazards                                                                                                                        Discussion on sharing – when and how to do it   Part 6:  Spatial Analysis                                                             Activity 13:  Spatial Analysis II : Invasive species                                                             Activity 14:  Deep learning feature extraction from satellite imagery                                                             Activity 15:  Land Records Mapping, analysis, and visualization                                                             Activity 16:   3D visualization and analysis  Part 7:   GIS Workflows and Considerations                                                              GIS content organization                                                              ArcGIS Pro and GIS tools                                                                      Data quality and the ethics of mapping.                                                                Continuing your GIS journey:                                                               Resources for moving forward:                                                              Books, organizations, tutorials, associations, networks, events. One of the things I like most about using StoryMaps as teaching tools is the sidecar capabilities.  For example, in Activity 15, and in many other activities, I place the directions on the left and the interactive web map in ArcGIS Online on the right, so the student can see the instructions while they are working through the lesson on the right (or, alternatively, popping the right side into a separate tab so they will have more space in which to work).  Lastly, like many other rigorous sets of curriculum, developing the above was aided by collaboration and networking. For example, my work with the Wisconsin Land Information Association (WLIA) connected me to the wonderful Washington County Wisconsin GIS staff, who have created an amazing data portal, the data from which I used, with their permission, for the above Activity #15.   Below is a screen shot from the lessons themselves.  I look forward to your reactions. --Joseph Kerski   ... View more