Education Blog

In an exciting new education partnership, Esri and the National Geographic Society have collaborated to create the next generation of their MapMaker app for schools. Designed for novice or new to GIS users, MapMaker is a free app that works in 2D and 3D, has a wide range of curated map content, innovative tools, support materials and does not require a login to get started.

Check out the 2023 Esri Innovation Program (EIP) Student of Year nominations - examples of wonderful  work done by students!

Join us for a key opportunity to dig deep into modern GIS tools, methods, and approaches to Explore Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in a face-to-face, hands-on setting.   The opportunity will be a 4-day workshop, to be held from 7-10 August 2023 at the Central Pennsylvania's Community College's Gettysburg Campus.   This is a GeoTech Center Workshop, funded by the National Science Foundation. Get paid for participating!   Join us! 

We are excited to announce the 2023 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition on Earth Day. The competition opens July 10th, but you can get a head start.

A new Esri Academy curriculum guide is available for instructors of planning and geodesign, in addition to existing guides for modern GIS, spatial data science, and imagery and remote sensing. All four curriculum guides have been updated to include ArcGIS Labs, a new exercise focused e-learning format on Esri Academy.

There are a lot of fantastic updates in the ArcGIS Online February update and many of these are very pertinent for the education community. You can read about all of the updates/full details in Bernie’s blog (https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-online/announcements/whats-new-arcgis-online-februa...) or in the ArcGIS Online documentation (https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/reference/whats-new.htm), but I wanted to take a minute to call special attention to just 3 of these updates.

Looking for a Way to Get Creative Kids into Cartography? Check out this children's map competition!

Open to US students fifteen years old and under, this year’s theme is A Map of My Future World. Six winners from the US competition will go on to compete with all other national winners at the international competition to be held this summer.

Go to the competition's website for competition rules, entry forms, and a poster you can share with others in your district or state. The competition is open to individual students as well as teams of up to three students.

But hurry—the deadline to submit entries is February 28, 2023!

Please contact @ColleenConner (cconner@esri.com) or Jim Thatcher (jethatch@uw.edu) with any questions.

Be sure to drop by the Esri booth #1132 in the exhibits area at the 2023 Conference on Science Education in Atlanta, GA.  We’re in the middle of the hall, adjacent to the large “Birds of a Feather” area.   We’re looking forward to reconnecting after being away for the last four years. 

My colleague Barbaree Duke at Directions Magazine and I have written an article entitled Geography in Everyday Life in 2022:  How geography is embedded in our everyday lives.  This essay describes the article and why we wrote it.  I would love to hear your reactions to it. 

If you were not able to join me for my Live Webcast on GIS Day! Maps, Apps, Music:  A mappy time!  The story map I created for the event, a resources story map, and the recordings are now available.