Latest Contributions by Kylie

GIS Day is only a couple of days away. If you are still looking for ideas for your K-12 classroom, here are some to consider. Do an activity using maps to explore a topic your class is studying. Redistricting and gerrymandering  You can find ready-to-use lessons for Earth Science, Geography, Human Geography, and more subjects in the Classroom activities gallery. (No accounts required.) One relevant activity to explore is Redistricting & gerrymandering. Dive into World Cultures and Geography with brand new National Geographic MapMaker activities. Explore westward expansion, the silk road, geomythology, and more with an interactive StoryMap and guided inquiry activities in MapMaker. Flattening EarthPlay with GIS with younger elementary students using resources in the GIS with Kids collection. Print map coloring pages, explore how to flatten a globe into a map, guess some locations around the world, or explore another of the included StoryMaps. (No accounts required.) Challenge high school students to explore GIS on their own using A student's self-guided exploration of GIS.  This guide includes a quick intro then takes students into making maps, doing analysis, and becoming familiar common GIS tools for projects. (Sections 2-4 require accounts, although many activities in section 2 can be done without them if you don't save your work.) Analysis activity galleryChallenge students with some GIS experience to learn about different types of analysis. See Analysis: An intro for K-12 classrooms for an intro, tutorials, and a first experience using specialized GIS tools. It even has a gallery of activities that use various analysis tools to solve real world problems - students can pick a problem of interest and be walked through how to solve it using GIS. (The tutorials and activities in the gallery require accounts. The introduction and first experience using specialized GIS tools can be completed without them.)    Exploring coding through a GIS lens and pick your ideal destination in Vacation Locations. (No accounts required.) Investigate the world in 2D and 3D with National Geographic MapMaker, an app with maps curated for K-12 classrooms. (No accounts required.) Experience GIS for Urban PlanningExperience GIS for urban planning, wildfire management, or conservation. Read an article or watch a video, try using the GIS yourself, and then optionally create the GIS you explored. (No accounts required to try the GIS. Accounts required for the optional step.) Participate in a GeoProject and get a taste of adding data to a map and seeing that added by others. (No accounts required.) Watch videos of students presenting their GIS work on the main stage at the Esri User Conference. (No accounts required.) In July 2025, students from the Colegio Agustiniano school in Panama demonstrated their remote sensing work. In July 2024, Washington-Liberty High School students answered complex questions in ArcGIS Pro. In July 2023, elementary students introduced the power of National Geographic MapMaker. Note: Some of these suggestions require accounts in ArcGIS Online. Generally, activities that don't require accounts provide the best introduction to GIS. Activities that require accounts are best used with students who have some familiarity with GIS already. What will your class do to celebrate GIS day? ... View more

I'm excited to share a new activity for students - Experience GIS for Conservation. This activity has students read about a real-life conservation GIS use case, answer some questions about what they've read, then use GIS to solve similar problems. No accounts? No problem - They aren't needed Students can get hands-on using GIS for conservation without having an account. The first part of the activity can be completed without one. If the students have accounts, there is more in the activity that they can continue to do. Where does the activity fit in the classroom? Consider incorporating this activity into the following career clusters and pathways in CTE programs: Agriculture, food, and natural resources Energy and natural resources Natural resources systems Environmental service systems Forestry and natural resources Conservation and land management Ecological resource and development Environmental protection STEM Law, public safety, corrections, and security Teaching a higher ed unit on conservation, environmental science, or environmental justice? Your students will also benefit. None of those apply to you? You can still use the activity - we are happy to see more students exposed to GIS. Leave us a comment about how the activity worked for your students. ... View more

I recently worked on a new activity to explore and understand Redistricting and Gerrymandering through maps. The patterns I used might help a teacher make an activity that reinforces a topic for their classroom by incorporating maps. Here are some tips for making your own map activity on a topic for one of your classes:   Keep it about the impact of maps on understanding the topic   Embed maps Provide specific steps to take with embedded maps  Encourage exploration of embedded maps  Provide checks for understanding   Don't ignore other important learning patterns   Let's dive deeper into each of these tips.  1. Keep it about the impact of maps on understanding the topic  My activity is focused on using maps to make redistricting easier to understand. I don't introduce the topic of redistricting from the ground up – I want the introduction to be controlled by each teacher who uses the activity. At the same time, I include enough background information so that students can see the tie between the map and the topic.   Take away: Explain, but keep it brief and map-oriented. Focus on the threads of the topic that maps bring to life.  2. Embed maps  Embedding the maps retains the reader's attention within the activity and increases the percentage who complete the full activity. It is hard to get attention back once you’ve put a reader onto another page. Using an ArcGIS StoryMap, I put all the maps, images, text, and other resources right in the flow of the activity. My reader stays in the activity universe I've created and can progress through on the topic while also interacting with the maps.   Take away: StoryMaps are great containers for map-based activities.  An embedded map in the Redistricting activity 3. Provide specific steps to take with embedded maps   Maps can be unfamiliar and guided exploration initiates engagement by removing insecurities around how to use the map. Give the students the precise, detailed steps to take to use the map to see the connection to the topic. Manipulating the maps themselves gets students hands-on with the topic of study, increasing their engagement and connection to the content. As a bonus, your students also build their skills for working with digital maps while learning about your topic.  Take away: Tell the reader exactly what to do with some maps.   4. Encourage exploration of embedded maps    Focus the student not on what button to push, but on exploring and seeing patterns and questions that you can answer with the help of a map. Ask questions you don't have explicit steps to solve – for example, by applying what they are learning to their own location.   Take away: Encourage exploration with some maps.   5. Provide checks for understanding     Focus the reader on key points by asking questions and reinforcing what the reader should be learning from the maps throughout your StoryMap. Consider numbering the questions throughout your text so that students can turn in answers to them as part of your assignment. Using a different color or style for the font for your questions helps separate the questions from the text and helps students identify that they need to provide a response.  Take-away: Reinforce key points through questions and reflection.   An example of a check from the Redistricting activity   6. Don’t ignore other important learning patterns  Some design choices were made that weren't directly impacted by the use of maps. I used sections and chunks within the activity so that it doesn't have to be completed all at once. Standards and outcomes are included to help teachers see how the material fits into their curriculum.   Take away: Don't forget what you already know about designing a good activity – just add maps.  Sections, including Standards and Outcomes, in the Redistricting activity   Wrap-up What topic are you going to turn into a map-supported activity? Comment and share what you want to make, or what you have made.   ... View more

ArcGIS Online, Esri's browser-based GIS, updated last night. Here are the new features I think educators will be most interested in: StoryMaps management (content page, item checker, & link translated stories) Share maps with a clean, user-focused interface without creating an app Map authoring enhancements (finding layers to add, label placement, & styles) Incorporation of AI to facilitate your mapping work Dashboard data source configuration New layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas   1. StoryMaps management (content page, item checker, & link translated stories) StoryMaps are always popular in education, and now managing your stories is easier. There are improvements for finding your work, checking it is functioning as expected, and providing translated versions. Content page When you view your StoryMaps, you now see, search, filter, and sort all your content at once, including stories, briefings, and collections. Learn more. . Item checker Check the functionality of all your published stories, briefings, templates, and themes for missing links, broken media, or other issues. For example, find maps that aren’t shared with the same audience as the story, or maps that include deleted layers. Learn more. Link translated stories Sometimes you need your content available in multiple languages. Previously, you’d author a separate story for each language and manually link them together. Now you can link translated versions of stories together and StoryMaps will display a language item in the story header. Learn more. 2. Share maps with a clean, user-focused interface without creating an app          In Map Viewer, share your map by “Create custom link” and you’ll provide your map in a simple map viewer, supporting navigation, a legend, and bookmarks. Keep students focused on the content they are exploring and prevent distractions from all the Map Viewer capabilities. Learn more. A map using a custom link 3. Map authoring enhancements (finding layers to add, label placement, & styles) Show what you want in your maps, and with some extra sparkle, making sure the right information is in front of students and catching their attention. When authoring a map, you can use folders and groups to find your layers that you want to add. You can also control if all labels show on the map and how overlapping labels are prioritized (especially useful when you want to know what labels will display as part of an activity). And animated lines and polygons, as well as gradient symbols, make the data in your map sparkle and more engaging. Learn more. My Content folder drop-down Gradient stroke symbols to show warm and cold ocean currents 4. Incorporation of AI to facilitate your mapping work AI assistants are available across ArcGIS to drive productivity and streamline workflows. Learn more. NOTE: Concerns about AI? Visit Trusted AI in ArcGIS. Of note in this release are the following assistants: ArcGIS StoryMaps assistants (beta) ArcGIS StoryMaps assistants help you and your students craft more engaging, accessible, and visually consistent stories through intelligent, context-aware support. The Writing assistant refines your text, the Insights assistant provides metrics to fine-tune your work, the Accessibility assistant reminds you of inclusive be practices, and the Theme assistant generates colors and fonts based on your prompts. Learn more. Survey123 assistant (preview) Instead of starting by dragging and dropping survey questions, let Survey123 assistant generates a starting point from your natural language prompt. It can also translates your surveys into multiple languages. Learn more. Arcade assistant (beta) The Arcade assistant generates expressions from natural language prompts, allowing you to explore coding with a guide. Learn more.   5. Dashboard data source configuration With the Data source panel, you can access and review all the data sources in your dashboard. Now when a layer is updated in a map, you can find and correct the references to the old layer to reference the new one. Learn more. 6. New layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas It's the data that inspires and excites, and with this update there are new, current, ready-to-use datasets to promote conservation. They include global biodiversity and conservation hexagons, marine protected areas from ProtectedSeas, wet bulb globe temperature predictions (encapsulating temperature, humidity, wind, cloud cover, and solar radiation), a global mangrove layer from NASA, and USA impaired waterbodies.   Check out these and all the other updates to ArcGIS Online in the release blog: What's new in ArcGIS Online (October 2025).   ... View more

Earth Science Week is from Oct. 12-18 and focused on energy resources. Power plants serve as a critical part of our energy infrastructure - and are central to this year’s Earth Science Week theme. Explore how power plant fuels are represented within the US and globally in this interactive, digital map included in National Geographic MapMaker. To explore the data as shown in the video above, do the following: Open the map. Click Map layers.  Turn on the "Active Generation by US State" layer, and turn off the "Global Power Plants" layer. Click Legend to see which fuel sources each color in the chart represents. Click on the chart symbols displayed across the US to explore the power plant fuels used in each state. Click Map layers, turn off the "Active Generation by US State" layer, and turn on the "Global Power Plants" layer. Tip: if no power plants are visible, zoom in. Click Legend to see which fuel sources each color on the map represents. Click on the power plants across the world to explore the power they generate, and what that amount of energy can power.  Looking for more Earth Science activities using maps? Explore the Earth Science content in our Activity Gallery. ... View more

If you have students who are curious about GIS, A student's self-guided exploration of GIS provides resources and a pathway for them to get an introduction and start building a foundation.   Ideally, all students should complete step 1 - they should know roughly what GIS is and does, and have used an interactive, digital map. From there, students have the resources they need to learn more. Then can continue with Step 2 and become a creator within GIS, then into Step 3 and perform analysis, or even through Step 4 and have exposure to apps and material useful if they'd like to do their own project including GIS. This guide was originally created with choice time or satisfying individual curiosity in mind, providing a GIS on-ramp for students looking for one. Your feedback is appreciated! Is this something you'd share with students, or do you have suggestions to make it stronger? Email us: schools@esri.com.   ... View more

As the K-12 team here at Esri, we are always looking for ways to make it easier for teachers to engage with GIS. We’ve recently updated our website to improve access to resources and information about bringing GIS to classrooms. You’ll now find: A breakdown of the software and accounts needed for different phases of your GIS journey, including not using an account, to public accounts for adults, and culminating in the ArcGIS for Schools Bundle. (Find it on our Mapping Software for K-12 Instruction page.)   A lesson page with quick links into the Classroom Activities Gallery and right to the subject you are teaching. (Find it on our Find lessons page.) Professional development resources for teachers, starting with GIS fundamentals and optionally progressing into map authoring, data collection, and analysis. (Find it on our Build Your GIS Skills page.) Resources and recommendations for doing spatial projects in the classroom. (Find it on our Empower project-based learning page.) We hope this update helps you find what you need. We'd appreciate any feedback. Email us: schools@esri.com.    ... View more

Redistricting is the process of drawing new congressional district boundaries. States can draw their own congressional districts, often allowing for creative shapes and sizes—and questionable constitutionality. Use the new Redistricting and gerrymandering StoryMap activity, including self-check questions and interactive maps, to explore the geography of redistricting and how districts do (or don't) meet the requirements of being compact, contiguous, and with roughly even populations. The activity explores the relationship between population and district size, looks at examples of how districts were drawn, and explores gerrymandering and the impact political parties can have on district boundaries. How did your state do on defining its district boundaries? And how'd we do on the activity? Let us know what you think, either in the comments or by email to schools@esri.com. ... View more

I'm excited to share a new activity for students - Experience GIS for Wildfire Management. This activity has students watch a short video about a real-life GIS use case in fire science, answer some questions about what they've seen, then use GIS to solve the same problem. No accounts? No problem - They aren't needed Students can get hands-on using GIS for wildfire management without having an account. The first part of the activity can be completed without one. If the students have accounts, there is more in the activity that they than can continue to do. Where does the activity fit in the classroom? Consider incorporating this activity into the following career clusters and pathways in CTE programs: Fire Science Fire Technology and Emergency Services Emergency and Fire Management Services Public Safety  Forestry and Natural Resources Teaching a higher ed unit on fire science or another fire topic? Your students will also benefit. None of those apply to you? You can still use the activity - we are happy to see more students exposed to GIS. Leave us a comment about how the activity worked for your students. ... View more

There is a new guide for managing your ArcGIS organization to help K-12 schools and districts. From setup through the management of an established school resource, the guides have instructions and recommendations for the tasks you’ll face. You’ll find it at https://esriurl.com/k12agoadmin. Guide A – Quick Start Once you get your ArcGIS for Schools Bundle, your first task is to set up your organization. Guide A – Quick Start takes you from the software activation email through setting up your online space and creating secure accounts for your users, maintaining compliance with common student privacy regulations such as COPPA, FERPA, and GDPR. Once you’ve followed this guide, your teachers and students can use ArcGIS Online, web and mobile apps, and data – the most popular components of the ArcGIS for Schools Bundle. Guide B – Organization Management With teachers and students doing amazing work in your ArcGIS organization, it becomes an active space that maintenance helps keep organized. Over the last year, you have seen blog posts with administration tips and tricks. Now they are all available (and kept updated) in Guide B – Organization Management.  This guide describes management processes used by people responsible for maintaining the ArcGIS for Schools Bundle. It takes you through managing ArcGIS Online accounts and items, including when and how to disable and delete accounts, and delete and store items. It enables you to keep your ArcGIS organization orderly as it grows in accounts and items, and ensures the right people have access and the right content is stored. And it provides information about management tools to make your life easier. Feedback appreciated Like any new resource, it was designed to help you. As you use the guide, let us know if there are still places you have questions, or where things are unclear. Just email us – schools@esri.com.   ... View more

Thanks to those of you who joined us for the Education Summit (and User Conference) in San Diego last week for sessions, discussions, and connections. To those of you that couldn't make it (or those that want to revisit it) here are some resources to bring some of the events to you. Access slides and resources from the Ed Summit sessions: https://link.esri.com/educ25/slides See the new features in ArcGIS Online: https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-online/announcements/whats-new-arcgis-online-june-2025 Watch a quick video of UC highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJy9fXAtMy4&list=PL1U1yOIVhnz_CH0k2OzLrbveEuq23TBZV  We always appreciate your feedback! Share in the comments if there was a session you loved, or something we could do better. ... View more

Drones are a popular technology for capturing high-resolution aerial imagery and data about the world around us. Many programs enable students to earn their Part 107 license, preparing them for commercial image-generation. GIS programs can incorporate drones and teach students how to combine the images captured with drones with GIS technology, taking their captures from images to up-to-date information ready to be used in decision making and analysis.   Learning the skills to do professional, accurate spatial data collection with drones prepares your students for careers in fields such as agriculture, construction, and urban planning. Incorporate drones into your GIS program in a handful of steps: Get ready Flight planning Fly and capture data Add the images to your GIS Use the images   Learn more in Incorporate drones into your GIS program. Do you use drones in your GIS program? Share the value they have brought in the comments. ... View more

Wow! Ed Summit is going to have a stacked lineup for folks interested in learning about projects and data collection. Check out the schedule I'd follow: GIS Projects with Students Custom Agenda This custom agenda is a neat way for me to share with you the sessions I would attend during Ed Summit to learn about GIS Projects. From the custom agenda, you can add sessions to your own schedule, as well as see details and presenters. There will be a lot going on at Ed Summit, so hopefully this helps you filter out some of the (rather exciting and inspiring, but not project-focused) noise and lets you find sessions to attend to build your project knowledge. Maybe I'll see you there.  ... View more

The privacy of minors needs to be protected. This includes their faces. When doing data collection with students, you might give instructions not to take pictures with other students in them. However, sometimes a student is in the background, or the instruction is forgotten (or ignored). You can set up your survey in ArcGIS Survey123 so that faces are blurred out when photos are taken. Note: Blurring faces in Survey123 requires using ArcGIS Survey123 Connect to author the survey and the ArcGIS Survey123 field app to collect the data. Step 1: Author the survey to include built-in face redaction   Create your survey in Survey123 Connect, including an image question. Tip: I often start in the web designer then download it in Connect and continue editing in Connect. If you are new to Survey123 Connect, see Guided tour or follow the tutorial Convert a paper census form to a digital survey. Find the image question in the spreadsheet defining the survey. For the image question, in the bind::esri:parameters column, add the redaction parameter as follows:      redaction=@faces Tip: If that column has other parameters, separate the different parameter sets with a space. For example, to set a max image size as well as redacting faces, you’ll have:        max-size=10 redaction=@faces Optionally add additional properties to the redaction parameter. See Add smart redaction to a survey for supported parameters. Use an ampersand to separate the parameters. For example, to use a symbol to block the faces instead of blurring them, and to have the preview when taking the picture also show the symbol, use:      redaction=@faces&cameraPreview=true&effect=symbol&symbol=🐷 Publish and share your survey. Step 2: Set up the field app and collect data, blurring out faces in images   In the Survey123 field app, tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner. Open the Settings page, select Privacy and Security, and enable enhanced camera features. Download the survey and start filling out the survey. Take an image and use the preview to review the redacted faces. You can do the following: Click on the image to add a new redaction box Click on a redaction box to move or resize it Drag a redaction box to the trash to remove it What else can smart assistants help you do? You can now make sure the faces of minors aren’t exposed in your collected data. But there is more that smart assistants and Survey123 can do, including: Performing image classification or object detection on images, populating other questions in the survey based on the results. Annotate images after detecting objects in them. Add redaction boxes wherever your images need them. Learn more in Smart assistants and Prepare smart assistants. For a tutorial, including how to build and verity a model, see Train a model to identify street signs.   ... View more

The closer Ed Summit gets, the more excited I am for my session ArcGIS Survey123 Design Challenge. This session is going to focus on designing surveys in ArcGIS Survey123 web designer to guarantee you get clean, well-formatted data that you can use to do analysis and solve your question. But we aren't going to just tell you the answers – we're going to see who can come up with a great solution. And right now, I want your favorite tips so I can make the session pull from more than just my tricks. A warm-up example You are collecting data about what year people moved to their homes. How would you design that question? One solution is to use a date question. Refining that solution, it could be a date question, showing year only, and perhaps even including constraints to limit the date range. A little more involved of an example Your students are collecting pictures of trash around campus. How would you design that question? Here you'd use an image question. Since detailed photos aren't needed, bonus points if you include in your answer restricting the file size.   And we'll even take it farther, like in this example Your students are collecting water samples, and you have divided the river into sections. You want them to report what section of the river their sample was collected in. How would you design that question? Potential solutions include choice lists, or even using their location to pull the zone, stored in another layer, into the survey. (Curious how?) Share your best trick for data design in Survey123 Do you have a trick or two up your sleeve for getting the best data out of Survey123? Share it with me! I'm looking for clear and creative examples of great data design to help attendees get the most out of this session. Getting your best data in Survey123 If you are coming to Ed Summit, come explore using ArcGIS Survey123 to get your best data. If you aren't coming to Ed Summit, consider changing that! You know educators can attend for free, right? ... View more