Latest Contributions by Kylie

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. In MapMaker, you can choose an area and how much detail to show, then create a PDF or an image of the blank map. Learn how in this story: Print map coloring pages. Studying places and where they are? Depending on the scale of where you are learning about, label them on a world map, a map of the United States, or even a map of a town or city.   Planning garbage routes for your town, or where you'd add a park? Use a map with your town's roads. Making plans for a trip? Use a map of the place you want to explore to plan where you'd like to visit.   With a blank map from MapMaker as your canvas, you can create on a map customized for the problem your class is solving. Where will your colored pencils take you? ... View more

** The issue has been resolved and the GeoInquiries are working again. ** ** This information was last updated 9/10/24 @ 11:01p PDT ** We are currently experiencing an issue with layers in many GeoInquiries. You might see this as being prompted to sign in when opening a GeoInquiry map, or specific layers not loading. Signing in won’t fix the issue; the issue is with some of the layers. One of our data providers is experiencing some difficulties, and we are working with them to get it resolved. We know this is interrupting some of your teaching, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience as we get it resolved and get the activities back up and running. Activities you can use today - ALL As we work to fix the data issue, not all activities are affected. Here are the activities that are working: Earth science (Map Viewer or MapMaker) 1 –Topography and Our National Heritage 2 – Remote Sensing 3 – Mining the World's Most Used Minerals 4 –Rock Types Tell Stories 5 – North American Landforms 6 – Cracked Plates 8 – Plate Type Effect on Volcanos 9 – Mountain Building 10 – A River Runs Through It 11 – Ocean Features 12 – Fluid Earth: Winds and Currents 13 – How's the Weather? 14 – Tropical Storms 15 – Climate Change Human Geography (Map Viewer or MapMaker) 2 – Understanding Globalization 3 – World Population 4 – USA Demographics 5 – You Claim It, You Name It! 6 – Language and Religion 7 – Sacred Place, Sacred Space 8 – Migration, On the Move 9 – Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers 10 – Farming and the Rural Landscape 11 – Agricultural Patterns 12 – The Human Development Index 13 – Comparing Country Development 14 – What's the Range 15 – Urban Areas and Edge Cities World geography (Map Viewer or MapMaker) 2 – Running Hot and Cold 3 – Earth Moves 5 – Crossing the Line 6 – Growing Pains 7 – Standards of Living 8 – A Line in the Sand 9 – Populations and Phone Lines 10 – The Arabian Peninsula 11 – Seasonal Differences 12 – Wealth of Nations 14 – Water World US history (Map Viewer) 1 – 13 Colonies (soon - separate fix in progress) 7 – Native American lands  16 – Historic Black Community Erasure 18 – Redlining Environmental science  (Map Viewer) 1 – The Beagle’s Path 2 – Population dynamics 4 – Megacities 7 – Dead zones 12 – Altered biomes Upper elementary (Map Viewer) 1 – Ecosystems (soon - separate fix in progress) 2 – Time zones  4 – Settlement patterns 10 – Public lands and national parks ... View more

Sometimes it's not cheating if you copy someone else's work. Sometimes it's a great way to get started understanding how to do something yourself. When working with dashboards, looking at the guts of a dashboard you love is a great way to figure out how to make similar dashboards for your own projects. At the Ed Summit in San Diego last month, I was involved in a couple of sessions about writing code and customizing, and I often mentioned how a dashboard can be copied and dissected. It's always a popular tip, and it's been a while since I shared it here, so here we go. Take a dashboard you love. What is it that draws you in? Perhaps it is a how a particular list looks, or how a certain chart interacts with the map and data. Make a copy of that dashboard and you'll have your own version to poke and prod, edit and modify. In your copy, you'll be able to configure each element and explore the settings the author used to create the original dashboard. This even includes any Arcade or data expressions the dashboard uses to make more complex displays. Ready to try it out? We'll use the favorite color dashboard as an example. While the process is relatively simple, it does require you to work with some URLs. Find the ID of the dashboard you want to copy. The ID is in the URL of the dashboard you want to copy. To find it, open the dashboard you want to copy. Look at the URL in your browser. At the end of the URL is a long, somewhat meaningless string — that's the ID. For example,  the favorite color dashboard's URL is https://arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/8b1b186fe52c435e95c0301997d271f0. It's ID is 8b1b186fe52c435e95c0301997d271f0 Tip: If the dashboard is in a StoryMap, click the icon to Open live content in a new tab — this opens the dashboard in a new tab and shows its URL, including the ID at the end. In your browser address bar, write a URL to create a copy of the dashboard by following this format:       https://arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/new#id=id_of_the_dashboard_to_copy where id_of_the_dashboard_to_copy is replaced with the ID you found in the previous step. For example, the following URL will make a copy of the favorite color dashboard in your account: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/new#id=8b1b186fe52c435e95c0301997d271f0 Press enter to go to the URL you just wrote. The "Create new dashboard" experience starts, but instead of creating an empty dashboard, you'll create one that matches the one whose ID you copied. Provide the requested information, click "Create dashboard," and you'll be taken to your copy. Review the configuration of the elements to learn how to make them. Explore the configuration settings, including any Arcade and data expressions, and see an example to help you configure a similar element for your dashboard. Some things to keep in mind: The dashboard you are configuring is a copy of the dashboard, but it uses the same map and data that the original dashboard used. You don't own the data, and you can't change the map.  Note: You could, of course, save your own copy of the map and then change your copy of the dashboard to use your map. But that will leave you having to make a number of updates to the elements to link them to your updated data sources. Your changes only affect your copy of the dashboard. The original is unchanged. Examples See some example dashboards and the links to copy them. Favorite Color dashboard ID: 8b1b186fe52c435e95c0301997d271f0 This is a relatively simple dashboard, but is included here as it was the example used above. It does have some interactions between the chart and map. view it live | make your own copy  Favorite subject dashboard of multi-select Survey123 data ID: 806d91b486ac4e679d61c4be4516f68d This dashboard takes multiselect (comma-delimited) Survey123 data and uses data expressions to examine the first choices as well to examine the sets of choices made without caring what order they were made in. It also uses Arcade to format list displays and colors, and filter to restrict the data include in another list and an indicator. view it live | make your own copy Esri UC 2021 Virtual Run/Walk/Bike leaderboard ID: 4d17fc2517994312a9512cba73b00bd8 This dashboard has lists with colored icon shapes and colors set based on data attributes, includes links in the list to additional information, and makes a list of pictures.  view it live | make your own copy Snowplow monitoring ID: f6f5f30e3ee54656a5636b0a1e3e1b4f This dashboard uses Arcade to calculate information not included in the data (speed) and presents that value. It also uses Arcade to set the color of the items in the list and to draw attention to key values. view it live | make your own copy Learn more Along with looking at examples and dissecting them, you can learn more about dashboard configuration by reading blogs. In particular, these are some good resources: For formatting lists and indicators using Arcade: Getting started with advanced formatting using Arcade in Dashboards For formatting tables using Arcade: Arcade tips for tables in ArcGIS Dashboards For data expressions to restructure your data: Introducing data expressions in ArcGIS Dashboards   Author's note: This is a rewrite of a blog from a few years ago. The steps haven't changed, but it is presented here again since old blogs aren't always found or kept updated, and as such aren't always trusted.      ... View more

If you are reading this blog, you likely already understand the value maps have in your classroom. But do you have a colleague you'd also like to see using maps in their classroom? Perhaps a teacher you know is inspired by what you do, but is unfamiliar with maps and unsure where to start. Share the updated (and free) Use a map for classroom instruction Esri Academy class with them to jumpstart their comfort with digital maps in the classroom. The course helps teachers understand the value of digital maps in the classroom, get experience with using maps, develop strategies for incorporating a map into a lesson, and get comfortable discussing a map in their classroom. This week the course was updated and it now uses MapMaker to provide experience working with digital maps. Teachers now come away from the course knowing how to use maps and with familiarity with a collection of maps that are designed for K-12 audiences.  Who are you going to get started on their mapping journey? Keep in mind the course is not a course on MapMaker - the goal isn't teaching how to use the app. Instead, the course provides a footing for teachers who'd like to use digital maps with their students but are unsure how to start. ... View more

The June 2024 update to MapMaker brings improvements for working with sketches and sublayers. There are also better notifications if you've made changes you might want to save. And as we regularly update and add data, there are new maps and layers ready for your classroom. Read the whole update in the What's new doc. Sketches are now a layer Now when you sketch on a map, you can work with the layer of your sketches like you do your other layers. Change the transparency, swipe them, or turn their visibility on and off.  Try it out: Add some sketches and look at the Map layers. Work directly with layers in a group layer Sometimes you'll see one layer that has different types of features - like coral bleaching areas and stations. With the latest release, you can work with the areas and stations independently. Only want to swipe or turn off one? Go for it. Need to work with the data table? Now you can. Try it out: Open the Coral Bleaching Heat Stress map or Real-time Earthquakes map and you can now access the data table for the coral bleaching areas or the earthquakes. Don't lose work - better notifications remind you to save Not sure if you've saved your work? A dot on the Save button now helps you remember. There are also notifications if you close the app with unsaved changes. New and improved maps and data Check out some new maps - Climate Change Indicators and Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification System. And keep an eye out for some more maps that are coming soon, including Seafloor Crustal Age and Terrestrial Biodiversity. Fixed issues We've also fixed some reported issues, including the following: When signed in, you can now resave a previously saved map. When searching for maps and layers, subcategories with the same name now filter correctly. Saving screenshots and PDFs now works better. ... View more

At the SkillsUSA California competition, two teams of students using GIS in their projects took home gold. Gold in the California competition earned each of these teams a trip to the SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference in Atlanta, Georgia later this month. ToxiGuard Pro The ToxiGuard Pro team, made up of one recent graduate and two rising seniors, took gold in the Career Pathway Showcase’s Industrial Engineering and Technology sector. They created ToxiGuard Pro – a web app for medical professionals that determines the potential contaminants to which a patient may have been exposed based on their past residences. Their app uses data from the EPA and CDC, combined with data collected through ArcGIS Survey123, and presents findings in ArcGIS Dashboards. See their project here: https://arcg.is/1y1K411   Brush Clearance The Brush Clearance team, made up of two rising seniors and one rising junior, took gold in the Career Pathway Showcase’s Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources category. They used GIS to prioritize brush clearance areas in Los Angeles County. Their project also included suggesting the best methods for brush clearance based on geographic factors. They worked with Los Angeles County for some of their datasets and found other datasets through online resources like USGS. They used ArcGIS Pro and multiple analysis tools, including calculate slope and surface parameters. See their project here: https://arcg.is/1ivq5v   Great work, and good luck! Both teams did some great work, and we wish them the best of luck at the SkillsUSA national competition! ... View more

A great way to get comfortable working with data, or to answer questions and solve problems with your class, is to collect and analyze your own data. Yet in the classroom, you run the risk of students submitting invalid data - either funny and inappropriate, or not aligned with the project's standards - that you don't want shared with the class. Ensure shared data is data you want your students seeing by reviewing it before it is visible to the class.  Spoiler: You'll find all the details and a working example in my "how-to" guide StoryMap, Reviewing student-collected data. Adding a review step is an involved process, requiring you to use a combination of data techniques and apps to create the survey, layers, maps, and apps. If you are comfortable working in ArcGIS Online, you've got this! Not only have I created a guide for you to follow to set up a review process for your own projects, it also includes a working example that you can try out to get familiar with the pieces you need to create. The workflow At a high-level, the guide will take you through trying and building the review workflow, which has three steps: Students collect data through a survey. The survey is configured to mark all data as submitted, using a review status attribute field that's hidden from the survey. Teachers and other designated individuals review the submitted data. They mark each entry as approved or rejected by updating the review status attribute. Students use the approved data to answer questions and solve problems. How and where they use it depends on what they need to do - you'll configure an app that meets their needs but is restricted to the approved data. Try it out and see how to set it up Ready to try it out yourself? Jump into the Reviewing student-collected data StoryMap where you can try out the working demo as well as learn how to set up a review process for your own data collection project. Questions? Leave a comment!   This is an update to the workflow shared in May 2022. While that review workflow still works, this has a few advantages: Using Survey123 to add a review status field saves you from editing the fields in the layer.  Using new Instant Apps simplifies what you need to create to support the review process.    ... View more

Last year Esri introduced a certification exam that’s appropriate for teachers and high school students with 150+ hours of training in GIS. To keep the exam current, it is regularly reviewed and updated. You’ll find a new version available with some key updates: Content updates to reflect changes in the software and a new exam offering number Some states will need to update their approved exam lists to account for the new exam number. Notice that the new version has a new URL – so update your references. Now offered through Pearson On-Vue! You can now choose to either take the exam at a test center, or through the online platform. A note about minors taking the exam If you have a minor you’d like to have sit for the exam, they need to have their guardian fill out the Minor Candidate Agreement form (see page 8 of the PDF). They also need to take it at a test center. Learn more about the exam on Esri Academy and see some tips on preparing for exam day. ... View more