A GIS Wordsearch

ODWC_GIS — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 21:38:33 GMT

Originally posted as a much belated reply to A GIS Crossword!, authored by @JosephKerski over on the Education Blog in 2020, it was moved to its own posting by a friendly ESRI Community Moderator.

All the Cool Kids Enjoy Word Puzzles

I attempted to produce a Word Search handout for some of our events (circa 2023), but it became somewhat garbled in execution.

Here is what I had envisioned:

15x25 Matrix sans Background

We wanted to provide a set of Questions and a QR Code.

The QR Code you could visit to find the answers.

The Questions' Answers are the Words to find:

1) From the air, or, Above

2) Information that describes a thing

3) Recognized Edges

4) Constant Distance; Encompassing Envelope

5) Lines of Constant Elevation

6) A pathway formed by linkages of suitable environments

7) To Find or Identify

8. Converting Information to a Digital Format more conducive to computational metrics

9) Prediction of where a species can/may/will be found, by combining environmental attributes known/thought to affect the species

10) Large, Grumbly Lumps

11) Ping-pong balls with legs

12) Gobble gobble

13) Ensuring the continued existence of a Resource

14) Pathways through the wilderness usually made by/for foot-traffic

15) The practice of Map-making (Science and Art)

16) Different name for Key to Map Symbology

17) Point Cloud of Infrared Laser reflections

18) To Align a Map with its Reference Direction; Lit. "East"

19) Non-Random Distributions in Space and/or Time

20) A real (or hypothesized) area within which a species lives/exists

21) Artificial Object Orbiting the Earth

22) Recognized Presence Records

23) SOund Navigation And Ranging (Using Sound to sense objects and your position)

24) Referring to objects or actions in real-world, 3-D space

25) 36 sq mi Steps North/South of a Longitude of Origin within a PLSS

Answers to Clues:

Word List and Clue:
The clue for "BEARS" was spot on!

Word Locations Revealed:

Answers Outlined

The Card went through several iterations, from "Too large to fit on a postcard," through an "I think this is a good final draft," before settling on "The one they wound up printing."

The execution of the idea ended up with a postcard-sized Word Search and Word List on one side, and an 'elevator speech' on the other. It worked out okay.

This project was created in early 2023 using R.

It took a bit of digging to find the project folder, but it looks like I was making use of the library worrrd, by Anthony Pileggi. Available at his GitHub page here.

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A GIS Wordsearch