Latest Contributions by CharlieFitzpatrick

In the annual Esri User Conference, a few select organizations get recognized for their work, via the "Special Achievement in GIS" awards (or "SAG awards"). In 2024, the organization earning this special recognition from Esri's K12 Education Industry team is the "2892 Miles to Go: Geographic Walk for Justice" project. The distance across USA can be measured in many ways, but one shows about 2892 miles from west coast to east coast. No matter how you view it, the stories that dominate across the land tend to come from those with power. The 2892 project strives to help communities bring forward other stories, from people with experiences and perspectives different from the dominant picture. They have used GIS to show patterns, identify relationships, and integrate all manner of data. With help from National Geographic, they have conducted workshops and catalyzed the assembly of rich and powerful content. Project leader (and National Geographic Explorer) Ashley Lamb-Sinclair shared the vision of community members generating and collecting data, and GIS mentor Anita Palmer showed how maps and StoryMaps could integrate it, from local to national scale. The first stories came from the adult world, and a rich and sensitive educational package has helped expose and disseminate these remarkable collections to teachers and students. Now, students are getting into the creation stage, too, showing the impact of deep engagement in learning activities. For this remarkable implementation of empowerment and education thru GIS, we heartily congratulate and thank the 2892 Miles to Go project. If you are new to 2892, please see these resources: Start here, and see the Collections: https://www.2892walk.org/ Educator Guide: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/60b81a02d2a34512970c4fee0b13e491 Webinar for educators: https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/t/1_ps7zioj4/293811472 Esri Blog: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/blog/maps-relate-community-history/   ... View more

K12 educators, administrators, and students alike can learn from the many in higher ed who have been doing GIS longer and/or more intensively. K12 educators who teach content using GIS can find powerful examples across a full range of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and research. Data science scholars, computer science and programming enthusiasts, and CTE instructors can see deep takes on GIS processes, tools, and strategies used in mapping, analyzing, and understanding complex situations and solving particular kinds of problems. K12 administrators in schools and districts will find key parallels in higher ed situations. And high school students hoping to build toward a career (with or without college) can see useful guidance for moving forward. Check out these examples: Students first: Want a career using GIS? See https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/students/overview Now adults: See all sectors of the Education zone on Esri Community: https://community.esri.com/t5/education/ct-p/education See especially the stories in the Education Blog: https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/bg-p/education-blog Want webinars? See the Higher Ed Chat: https://gis-in-higher-education-chat-edresources.hub.arcgis.com/  Looking for user stories and curriculum use examples? Explore all the way down this page: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/higher-education/roles/educators Researchers want to discover and create knowledge? https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/higher-education/roles/researchers  Administrators looking for ways to manage school more powerfully, easily, and inexpensively? See https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/higher-education/roles/educators  GIS is a powerful technology for understanding the world and solving problems. Learning from those who have been doing it successfully is just smart. ... View more

Nearly 250 years ago, a significant document was penned and signed. It has inspired people for generations, even though questions persist about the inclusivity of "all men are created equal." Still, the words foster lofty goals. People who work with GIS use layers to represent the world, and some of us see layers in everything. Layers help us model and understand the complex nature of an environment, no matter the ratio of human or natural factors. We perceive patterns and flows, relationships over space and time. The swells and swales of the land match those of the water, and the air, and the people; all influence everything around them. Day and night, summer and winter, year in and year out, growth and decline, we find rhythms ... systems ... changes ... one thing affects another, which in turn affects the first. Links moving out build a complex web of interactions, whether deep in a tropical rain forest, high in an urban jungle, aloft like birds, or grounded like people. Zoomed in, the individual interactions seem chaotic; zoomed out, resilience appears -- the prey feeds the predator, but the predator keeps the prey strong. Zoomed even farther out, we can see the interaction of many systems moving together, like the murmurations of birds. But sometimes, a force disrupts the natural order. A comet, tsunami, drought-fed conflagration, random mutation, discovery, revolution, epidemic, war ... systems can sometimes heal, but sometimes the damage is too severe. Those most robust may survive despite tremendous loss, while others disappear forever. Given the curious quirks of humans, societies have ebbed and flowed over time. One man has stopped a war with just his words and example, while others with a different perspective have started them just that way. What matters most is the heart underpinning a system, the soundness of the structural elements. Absent cataclysm, over time, all parts of a system can adapt, bit by bit, growing more resilient, synergistic, and resplendent. Building a system with words and ideas takes heart, a structure that embraces, supports, and defends its highest values, and wisdom to grasp the synergy of pluralism, equity, and shared dependence. On this celebration and remembrance of a daring document with some of humanity's most lofty ideas, may we who use maps pledge to help others see and grasp the layers and systems of our world.   ... View more

Want to teach with GIS hassle free? Want ease of use, powerful learning, ramping up capacity, for free? You and students can do a ton of work, without needing a login. I. INTRO using National Geographic MapMaker: Build essential skills and grasp of critical concepts Pan, zoom, "Home," search for places or addresses Basemaps, symbols, meaning, cartographic standards, maps as models ("simplifications") Smaller scale (zoomed out) vs larger scale (zoomed in), and scale-sensitive data Rotate the map; "north" is not "up"; lock in on N/S/E/W vs up/down/left/right Compare sizes (Greenland vs Africa) in 2D, then in 3D; look at map "purposes" and "distortion" In 3D, explore tilt (see Nepal, Hawaii, San Francisco, home) Measure distances, in both 2D and 3D (Los Angeles to London; northernmost Alaska to southernmost Africa, and home to school) Measure elevation, in both 2D and 3D (Hawaii to the western tip of Great Lakes) Explore the daylight tool in 3D Use sketch to add a marker Create and export a screenshot, then drop that export into a document "How much" information does a single map contain before you touch it? How much when you can interact with it? II. INTRO PLUS using MapMaker: Build understanding of content and GIS Open a map (try "Biomes") to see pre-constructed explorations of specific content in the physical world and the human experience See "metadata" about the map by clicking the "circled i" in the title bar See a legend to interpret symbols of a map layer. On the map, click different areas with matching symbols in the legend. Examine features, popups, layers, legend, and "selection." Click "Add layer" and choose "Latitude & Longitude," noting first its metadata. Addition of this single simple layer helps to emphasize patterns and relationships, in both 2D and 3D. Address latitude & longitude concepts (absolute and relative location, range N-S vs E-W, precision, etc) using 2D and 3D, at global to local scale. In 2D, click "Map layers" button, and explore layers' on/off ("visibility"), transparency, swipe. Open a new map and use Search to find "Ethnicity in the United States." Click "Bookmarks," choose Alaska, and click a feature, then scroll through the popup, noting how the same data can be represented in different ways, each with advantages and disadvantages. Zoom in closer and closer to the city of Anchorage (Alaska), then compare with Puerto Rico. III. INVESTIGATE CORE CONTENT with GeoInquiries: Enrich grasp of key items in standard subjects Pick one of the ten subjects and choose a "Level One" activity (requires no login). Each is a stand-alone item, and does not depend on other lessons, but each benefits from experience that users build with previous GeoInquiries and by work in MapMaker (above). All activities are available using MapViewer. Some activities (currently Earth Science, Human Geography, and World Geography) offer the lesson in both MapViewer and MapMaker versions. Regardless of subject, specific activity, or version, each teacher plan follows an "inquiry" arc. Read the short pdf designed for teachers and explore the map. Consider whether to follow the plan as presented, use only parts, or present the content in a different sequence, perhaps with additional elements. Consider using a teacher-driven, teacher-centered model versus students going through the work entirely on their own, or working in groups, or mixing and shifting, perhaps with all doing a part together, then breaking up to pursue solo or group investigation. Time available, class background, instructional goals, and technology access (bandwidth and devices) will influence this. There is no best way for everyone. Consider how best to assess student gains from the activity; dropping screenshots into a document and posting for a teacher is a common approach but by no means the only one. IV. PUSH INTO PROJECTS with public apps: Give students experience engaging with online apps under a project mindset by working with GeoProjects. Even the "simplest question" -- what's your favorite color? -- can lead to all manner of analyses when combined with location. When students enter their own data, they can see different mechanisms for data entry. Strategies that "work great here but less great there" help students ponder their own projects, designs, and purposes. Students can also see and even do all manner of analyses, with maps and charts and tables and dashboards all appropriate under different circumstances. This leads quickly down the rabbit hole into personal adventures possible with maps and apps. Here is a small collection of current public apps in which students and educators can dive into apps ripe with maps and data, discover patterns, find relationships, gather information, see stories, save screenshots, and contemplate the future, all without a login required. Link: USA Wildfire Activity App Link: USGS Global Recent Earthquakes Link: Living Atlas Live Feeds (layers) Link: Living Atlas Policy Maps (collection; see also this blog) Link: FEMA National Risk Index (NRI) Link: Climate Mapping for Resilience & Adaptation (CMRA; see also this blog) Link: ZIP Code Lookup: US demographics at ZIP Code level (works best in Chrome) LINK: StoryMaps for Schools (single stories and collections) Link: ArcGIS StoryMaps Gallery (single stories and collections) Link: ArcGIS Online Competition for US High School & Middle School Students Eventually, when educators and students need to create, save, and share, a login is essential. But it is most definitely not the case that a login is required for learning. ... View more

Esri provides ArcGIS Online Organizations to schools and districts at no cost for instructional use as the central element in an ArcGIS School Bundle. These Orgs work best when architected carefully. Most school districts, certainly those below 50,000 students (in USA, about 100 districts exceed 50,000 students), are best served by a single Org covering everyone. A single well-architected Org relying on single sign-on has these benefits for a district: improves access, making the Org available easily to all saves significant time for teachers and students coping with forgotten passwords saves time for teachers doing instructional planning teachers can more easily share activities within and even across schools teachers and students shifting schools within the district retain their existing account design standards and consistency across an Org make resources easier to find important content and messaging can be more easily shared to all IT staff is more easily engaged in planning and management; teachers can reduce their time spent managing Orgs having student usernames and profiles follow a consistent and proper protocol improves their security ensuring multiple admins can engage means that any needs arising during absences and emergencies can be handled expeditiously ensuring multiple primary admins exist means that critical system information will be received by more people, and is therefore more likely to be considered etc IMPLEMENTATION: How can a district begin consolidating ArcGIS Online Orgs? See https://esriurl.com/usk12gis to discover what exists. Seek out faculty at each site using any existing Orgs. Contact Esri Schools Team ([email protected]) to check on status of Orgs. Confer with current users, instructional leaders, and IT staff about policy choices and decisions. Discuss choosing an existing Org to become the designated district Org, including setting the URL and name to reflect everyone; OR discuss acquiring a new Org to be the new district home, perhaps even giving schools as much as a full school year to transition Ensure single sign-on is in place. (See https://esriurl.com/k12sso for guidance.) Explore processes for cloning important content of individual users from one or more school Orgs into new usernames within a district Org Python code (do-it-yourself) ArcGIS Online Assistant, https://assistant.esri-ps.com/signin GEO Jobe Admin Tools, https://geo-jobe.com/admin-tools/ Q&A:  How can I tell if our school or anyone in our district already has software? See the map at https://esriurl.com/usk12gis Can a district above 50,000 students follow these same strategies? Absolutely, but contact [email protected] to explore additional strategies for such large numbers. How can a school district with no Orgs start using GIS for instruction? Have someone in district IT staff or instructional leadership request an ArcGIS School Bundle, at https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/k-12-education/schools-software How can an individual school, teacher, program, or project retain "visibility" in a new single Org serving the entire district? Use ArcGIS Hub, ArcGIS StoryMaps, Groups, and Galleries to organize, collaborate, and promote; these resources provide infinite opportunity to retain visibility. Can a private school follow these best practices? Yes, engage them even as a single school; this is a set of best practices. How can a home school follow these best practices? Contact [email protected]; there may be a group you might be able to work with. ArcGIS Online Organizations are powerful instructional resources when properly configured. They can help a district boost equity, student security, resource stability, and instructional quality and efficiency, all at once. Is your school or district doing the best it can?   ... View more

Many GIS professionals do research, analyze data, think holistically about complex situations, and compile resources into a map-centered presentation. The ArcGIS Online Competition for US High School & Middle School Students challenges participants in grades 4-12 to do just that. Many students begin and falter; some make it all the way through; a few tackle it year after year. All benefit even just by starting, learning to see the world through a geographic lens. Could you determine where to allocate scarce resources, interpret the most basic data set in multiple ways, summarize disparate views of a community in need, or model a strategy for comparing apples and oranges? This is what the national winners and honorable mentions at high school and middle school levels did this year. Across the board, students gathered data, converted information from one form into another, explored maps, sought patterns and relationships from galactic to microscopic, mundane to existential, past to future, and made recommendations to address issues.   In 2024, almost 400 entries were submitted in 36 states. Over 200 projects earned awards, and over 50 of these were named state winners in their level. Many of these were impressive, and particularly the two national winners and two honorable mentions. You can see all the awardees and explore by region, topic, level, or winners, and launch them all at the Competition webpage. You can see winners summarize their projects in three-minute videos. Check out what students can do with the ability to map and analyze data, find patterns and relationships, and think geographically using GIS. And join the Results Webinar, Thu June 20, 5-6pmPDT. Reqister here (required) to hear the winners.   ... View more

On the first Earth Day in 1970, I was a high school junior. I remember the day, plus images and ideas of the era: from NASA Apollo 17, Dec.7,1972the first good photo of a small blue planet in space; fossil fuels, speed limits, and "drive 55;" major cities choking with air too thick to breathe; a river on fire; planes spraying DDT over our local pond; Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring;" the word "ecology" entering daily use, along with talk of ecosystems, rain forests, and systems in general; "carrying capacity," and some unpleasant discussions about "lifeboats;" Alvin Toffler's book "Future Shock;" the phrase "spaceship Earth," and the analogy of species as rivets holding our ship together. My world in 1970 was shifting … from permanence, stasis, and my obsession about fish and fishing, toward change, evolution, time, cycles, systems of systems, patterns, relationships … toward geography. I spent the summer of 1975 on the Juneau Icefield, studying climate change. That autumn, the chart of greenhouse gases plus the accumulation of patterns and relationships drove me to become a geography teacher. In one of my college papers, I borrowed this excerpt from the Francis Thompson's poem "The Mistress of Vision": All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly, To each other link-ed are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star…   National Geographic MapMaker, https://esri.com/mapmakerThose immortal powers, I saw, were the patterns and relationships, the systems and feedback loops; they powered the sun, made rain forests, let people live in deserts and cities, fed epidemics and wars, and shaped discovery, invention, diffusion, and differentiation. Along the way, humans have acquired the powers of conceiving, modeling, forecasting ... and acting. Today, people of all ages can build key knowledge with basic GIS tools. On this Earth Day #55, I hope we as a species will explore these patterns and relationships, study the trajectories, and act with knowledge. Our remarkable planet is a complex system of systems, and we need to care for all things, near or far.   ... View more

Summer is approaching! Recently, we passed the March equinox, when the sun comes up for the North Pole and sets for the South Pole, and all locations on Earth receive 12 hours of daylight. I wanted to see what equinoxes and solstices looked like using National Geographic MapMaker. After tinkering a bit, I built a StoryMap Briefing about it. It's a modest activity, but fun to build, play with, and explore. While humans have been able to change much on Earth, we have not yet changed the tilt or rotation, though there is now discussion that global warming might change the speed of rotation. Explore and enjoy!    ... View more

Get ready, educators in high school and college! More and more students are building GIS familiarity and even expertise at younger and younger grades. Are you ready to help them go farther, think deeper, engage more powerfully, and be truly engaged learners? The Virginia Geospatial Semester serves a year of college level (dual enrollment) GIS instruction as a standard academic course, finishing with an independent project. Most students are 12th grade, but some students take a first year in grade 11 and do a second year of even deeper GIS projects. Across the 25+ schools in this network, enrollment in VGS for the coming school year may hit 1000. Career & Technical Education (CTE) classes across USA are providing one or more years of GIS experience (sometimes general, sometimes focused on a specific industry). CTE courses frequently steer toward industry-oriented certification, for which Esri's "GIS Fundamentals Foundation" certification is a natural target. CTE teachers and students alike are getting ready to take the test this spring. This year, in Virginia, a middle school is running a specific year-long GIS class, led by a long-time GIS-using social studies teacher. Students are building competency in understanding maps, making maps, using layers, interpreting information, generating data, sharing content, and creating presentations. A technology educator at the same middle school is embedding GIS concepts and activities within her CTE classes' work. Starting in 2000, school projects appeared on stage at Esri's User Conference. High school, middle school, and even elementary school students have demonstrated comfort with technology, working with multiple tools to understand information and solve problems. In 2023, a trio of rising 6th graders demoed National Geographic MapMaker, a new tool designed for introducing students and teachers to learning core academic content through a GIS lens. When asked how long it took to get comfortable with MapMaker, the students replied "Maybe a minute?" In the ArcGIS Online Competition for US High School & Middle School Students, participants do a custom research project, generate data, build maps, document everything, and submit the final result as an ArcGIS StoryMap. National winners tend to be in grades 11-12 (HS level) or 7-8 (MS level), but in 2023 the honorable mention for middle school went to a 4th grader. Educators who inherit GIS-savvy students are advised to build your own capacity, so you can help these young learners be ever more impactful. If you know an educator who is nervous about starting with GIS, point them to MapMaker and the Education Summit @ Esri UC 2024. ... View more

In his activities with young people, Nick Okafor, the founder of trubel&co, models the nature and power of GIS. In understanding his story, these truths stand out. Our world has innumerable layers, everywhere across space and time. Not everyone sees, acknowledges, understands, or considers all layers. Mapping data makes more visible even that which is hidden, which gives it more power. Exploring and integrating data geographically illuminates the patterns within layers and the relationships between them. One can understand better the nature, quality, value, and power of data by generating data, ideally about something that affects one personally. Once someone learns to see and think in layers, it is hard to stop. The intersection of layers can compound impacts though feedback cycles. Grasping the interplay of layers can help one conceive alternatives; how things are is not how they must be. Young people have a keen sense of justice and power, and generating maps that show injustice builds power. In profound ways, GIS propels experiential learning, critical thinking, problem-solving, project-based learning, and a STEM-based modus operandi, useful personally in any number of careers, and helpful for communities. For centuries, maps have meant knowledge … and power. Young people can grasp this truth and harness the power of maps with just a few basic GIS tools. See how this remarkable educator is building vision within communities. ... View more

The Education Summit @ Esri UC 2024 (or "EdUC") will take place in San Diego, California, Saturday July 13 - Tuesday July 16. It is open to educators at all levels, formal or informal, from grade school to grad school, "K-grey." Saturday and Sunday is education focused, at the Marriott. On Monday and Tuesday we join the full community of GIS users at the San Diego Convention Center for the first two days of the big User Conference. And the cost? Higher ed license users may have registrations attached to the license, so connect with your license admin, and clarify your days of attendance. ArcGIS School Bundle users (adults only) can attend Sat-Tue for $0 registration, a phenomenal opportunity! Pro tip #1: Share a room, and reserve lodging and transportation as soon as possible, as competition is strong. EdUC is arguably the best four-day event educators can attend to upgrade their capacity to use GIS in instruction. There are hundreds of GIS-using educators, including many from beyond USA, and there may be 20,000 other GIS users, spanning every industry you can think of. Past attendees have commented that this is the happiest, most sharing-focused large group they have ever been a part of. At almost any moment, you can spin around, spot someone you don't know, say hello, and in three minutes learn something new and useful. For educators, the four days can be as exhausting as the first four days of the school year, but filled with the uncommon joy of meeting old friends and new peers, making new allies from some chance discussion, and smiling until you hurt, as you record new ideas and add photos to your collection. Pro tip #2: Bring MANY business cards, spare batteries and cables for your phone, and good walking shoes. Plan NOW to attend the Education Summit @ Esri UC 2024! See registration process video!   ... View more

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics … for decades, US residents have heard a persistent call for STEM education. (Sometimes, people add Arts, making "STEAM.") Backgrounds in STEM can help young people build up toward a vast array of careers, and GIS can be both a powerful toolset and modus operandi in most of these arenas. One need only look at Esri's Industries webpage for confirmation. STEM education and GIS had a prominent position at Esri's 2024 Federal GIS Conference, when Tonya Wilkerson, Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ("NGA") stepped to the mic as the final keynote speaker. "We happen to have many [scientists] at NGA, where our motto is 'Know the world, show the way, from seabed to space.'" NGA is working to boost the "STEM talent pipeline, starting in kindergarten, all the way to those starting second careers…" Key within this is advancing "our geoint knowledge and tradecraft." Besides NGA's prominent role in coping with "bad actors," NGA also is key to humanitarian efforts and disaster response, and understanding all the forces affecting national security. GIS is essential. GIS provides opportunities in data collection, management, analysis, visualization, integration, interpretation, presentation, and policy making. Throughout, people are questioning, designing, modeling, building, inventing, creating, discovering, and sharing. Building these skills -- these habits of mind -- opens limitless opportunity for learners of any age to play a powerful role in "creating the world we want to see" (the theme of the conference). The 21 conference videos, including that of Tonya Wilkerson, are all online. Teachers and students alike can see what GIS users are doing, how advances in software and processes are used in industries from agriculture to big data and generative AI. The 4-minute opening video asks and shows how people are working together to create the world we want to see, and GIS is fundamental to all of it.   ... View more

What a wonder it is, having true teachers among us. Many who love a subject or activity can spend endless time on it for their own joy. But a true teacher is never happier than introducing something and watching a learner catch the fire. With a steady stream of incoming learners, of all different makeups, true teachers seem tireless. We are blessed to have any in our personal lives, and even just one can make incomparable difference, to learners of any age, setting in motion ripples that go far beyond the horizon. Jim Hanson is a true teacher. He "retired" more than 20 years ago, yet there he is, still teaching students and teachers, still organizing activities, still illuminating paths and setting signposts for others. See the full profile for this true teacher who, with a few good questions and a small table of data, coaxed early computers into unveiling patterns and relationships, changing forever how many of us taught, and thus how countless others thought about the world. https://www.esri.com/en-us/lg/industry/education/stories/deconstructing-k-12-education   ... View more