Education Blog

A concept that is central to the teaching of GIS, geography, environmental science, and other disciplines is scale.  One effective way to teach about scale is to use a subject that most people have at least some grasp of--world countries.  This new and amazing 3D web mapping application allows instructors and students to quickly and effectively compare the sizes of world countries.  It thus can serve as an effective way to teach and learn about scale and related concepts.

Amidst the tsunami of information coming at us, how do we keep up to date with Education-related announcements?

In this monograph and video, Dr Josef Strobl from the University of Salzburg and Dr Joseph Kerski from Esri and the University of Denver advocate the movement in education from domains to dimensions, from compartments to context, from isolation (of views) to integration. 

Since the mid-90’s, national educational standards in the US have been used to provide guidance about what students should be taught – and at what level.

On April 12th, we held a Modern GIS Faculty Panel that discussed the move to 'modern' tools and methods for teaching GIS. With all of the great content, we ran out of time for the questions that came in. As a follow-up, each of the panelists reviewed the questions and offered their responses.  

Four prominent professional educator associations and a national coalition recently issued a stentorian call against politicizing schools.

I heard about a consumer version of StoryMaps: What is it, and how is it different than ArcGIS StoryMaps?

As you have likely heard, ArcMap is being retired in March 2026. How would this be reflected in Education Program licenses? What comes next?

This article explains, through a story map that includes a web map and an interactive editable spreadsheet, how the fundamentals of GIS can be clearly and easily taught and learned. 

Connecting metacognitive knowledge to GIS instruction can help guide instructors in planning activities, courses, and programs, including assessing student work and building in plenty of self-reflection and engagement.   For more, see these reflections in video form.