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Enhancing Meteorology Instruction with GIS

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07-26-2023 07:49 AM
JosephKerski
by Esri Notable Contributor
Esri Notable Contributor
2 0 1,608
‎07-26-2023 07:49 AM

Explore how to enhance your meteorology instruction with GIS tools, methods, and data with this new set of resources.  These resources, presented as an ArcGIS Story Map, here, includes both core content and hand-on activities that you can use in upper primary schools, others most suitable for secondary instruction, and others that are perfect for college and university level. 

The goals of this resource are three-fold:  (1)  To teach core meteorology content (air masses, temperature, weather-related hazards, pressure, cloud observations, and more), (2)  To use GIS to enhance content knowledge and skill building, to increase interest using a wide variety of fascinating data in problem-solving contexts, and (3) To empower students and foster career pathways via students using some of the same geospatial tools that meteorologists use everyday on the job.  These include spatial analytics, data services including live weather feeds, symbology, classification, image analysis, dashboards, field surveys, storymaps, graphs and charts, and expressions. 

I created this content for educators enrolled in a summer program sponsored by the American Meteorological Society (AMS), with whom Esri has a longstanding good relationship and taught this workshop in an online virtual mode.  However, the resource can be used by any educator teaching about weather, climate, or geography.   It can also be used by educators teaching GIS as there is plenty of GIS skills embedded in the course.  It can be used in face-to-face and online settings.  All of the activities use ArcGIS Online; some can be completed even without signing in to ArcGIS Online.

I structured the story map, which could be considered an e-book and mini-course given the breadth and depth of content,  as follows:

  • 1.  Goals and philosophy of the mini-course.
  • 2.  Why teaching with GIS matters, and why GIS matters to our planet.
  • 3.  Definitions of maps and GIS.
  • 4.  Activity 1:   Analyzing 70 years of tornadoes.  Filtering data by intensity, time of day, width, fatalities, and considering time of year and proximity to cities.
  • 5.  What is the ArcGIS Platform?
  • 6.  Why teach with GIS?  With reference to a e-book I wrote on this topic.
  • 7.  Activity 2:  A course survey, online interactive maps, and dashboard.
  • 8.  What is Esri?  How is GIS tied to all the sciences?
  • 9.  Activity 3:  Mapping a spreadsheet.  This spreadsheet represents low and high temperatures across the USA for January and July of a specific year.
  • 10.  Activity 4:  Symbolizing, classifying, and charting data.  These tools are used to examine patterns on maps, assessing the affect of coastlines, landforms, latitude, air currents, and other factors on extreme temperatures. 
  • 11.  Activity 5:   Creating expressions to analyze change over space and time.  The focus here is on current hurricanes and typhoons.
  • 12.  Activity 6:  Examine current weather:  Temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, precipitation, satellite imagery, and more, from live weather feeds.
  • 13.  Activity 7:  Measuring central tendency:  Use spatial analysis tools to filter weather data to determine the mean center and standard deviational ellipse of weather data on maps.
  • 14.  Activity 8:  Interpolating surfaces:  Create an interpolated surface from weather data.  Consider data quality as you do so.
  • 15.  Activity 9:  Creating a weather field survey, map, dashboard, and story map:  The data includes date and time, cloud cover, cloud type, temperature, location, and a photograph of the sky.
  • 16.  Activity 10:  Teaching approaches.  These include the 10 core GIS skills that if you gain confidence in, you and your students truly have superpowers.  They also include ways that educators start using GIS:  Using Esri Geoinquiries, ArcGIS Learn lessons, Living Atlas apps, and other ways.
  • 17.   Keep learning:  How to continue your journey with GIS.  These resources include links to key data sources, courses and lessons, including the new Esri Climate Action MOOC, an essay that I co-wrote with Dr Michael Gould about using WebGIS to teach climate resilience, and more.

meteorology_storymap.png

A section of the story map linked above.

I truly hope this resource is useful and I look forward to your reactions.

--Joseph Kerski

About the Author
I believe that spatial thinking can transform education and society through the application of Geographic Information Systems for instruction, research, administration, and policy. I hold 3 degrees in Geography, have served at NOAA, the US Census Bureau, and USGS as a cartographer and geographer, and teach a variety of F2F (Face to Face) (including T3G) and online courses. I have authored a variety of books and textbooks about the environment, STEM, GIS, and education. These include "Interpreting Our World", "Essentials of the Environment", "Tribal GIS", "The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data", "International Perspectives on Teaching and Learning with GIS In Secondary Education", "Spatial Mathematics" and others. I write for 2 blogs, 2 monthly podcasts, and a variety of journals, and have created over 5,000 videos on the Our Earth YouTube channel. Yet, as time passes, the more I realize my own limitations and that this is a lifelong learning endeavor and thus I actively seek mentors and collaborators.