Education Blog

Enhance resource allocation, policy making, and community engagement with updated School district data. #EsriDemographics' latest release offers updated data for detailed analysis. Learn how to access it.

The November 2024 update to MapMaker is focused on workflows around information in the map. You can add pop-ups to sketches, create sketches from search results, see data in 3D without shadows by default, used an improved Map layers panel, and even close Map layers and keep working with an open table. And yes, of course we’ve added some new maps and layers that are ready for your classroom.

She wasn't a bad turkey - just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The next thing she knew, she had been rounded up with several other tasty-looking turkeys. Pickles the turkey wasn't panicked but she knew she was going to need some luck.

Grim, recent hurricane events shows once again how and why GIS is an effective tool for emergency response when lives are imperiled and property devastated.  In education, GIS can help students at all levels and across many disciplines understand the spatial and temporal patterns of hurricanes and typhoons from global to local scales.  This set of resources was written with heavy hearts for all those recently affected with an aim to help students and faculty become empowered with learning and teaching about these disastrous events. 

MapMaker has large catalogue of carefully curated maps and data for schools that supports a wide range of curriculum areas. This short blog will highlight three new additions to the collection that have an Oceans theme or connection:

Read on for Sea Surface Temperature, Ocean Currents in Motion and Sea Floor Crustal Age.

Have students color a map to demonstrate knowledge, plan a route, design a city, share where they've been or want to go... the possibilities are endless. Start by printing blank maps from MapMaker. Use the Black and White Outline basemap.

Of all of the activities I have created, tested, and used with students over the years, one seems to be often cited by students as memorable and impactful:  Asking students to create sketch maps of their childhood neighborhood.  In this essay and guidelines, I describe this activity with an encouragement for you to use it or your own modification of it in your own instruction.

Use these GIS resources in your K-12 instruction as you head back to the classroom this fall.

Of all my blogs, here are what I think are the most useful today. And a little thank you.

One organization earned the K12 Special Achievement in GIS award for 2024, for doing inspired and inspiring work.