Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

In this activity, which requires one or two class periods, and can be used in upper secondary and in higher education, you have the opportunity to advance your mathematics knowledge by creating and interpreting charts and plotting coefficient of determinations. Open the following web map in ArcGIS Online: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=4168c7a43f6d423dad872796af9f9c9e The map opens to an extent showing the state of Colorado in the USA with 2 layers visible:  Colorado 14ers (peaks over 14,000 feet in elevation), and ACS (American Community Survey) county level housing and income data from the US Census Bureau.  To the left of the map, use Layers > turn off the ACS layer > so that only the mountain peaks are visible.  If you open the table of data behind this layer, you will see that 58 records exist, corresponding to the number of peaks that meet this elevation.  You will also note that a field exists called Elevation, and another field exists called Difficulty.  The difficulty are ranked from 1 (most difficult) to 58 (least difficult).  The criteria used to generate the difficulty includes (1) climbing duration and challenges inherent in the trek, (2) terrain stability, (3) cliff exposure, (4) presence of a trail, (5) elevation gain, and (6) total roundtrip hike distance.  Thus, the difficulty is really an index that incorporates 6 different criteria.   Is there a relationship between elevation and difficulty?  To find out, you will create a chart and create a coefficient of determinations fit on that chart.  To the right of the map > Configure Chart > Add Chart > Scatter Plot > Data > X-axis:  Elevation.  Y-axis:  Difficulty > Show Linear Trend (the coefficient of determinations) > observe your chart (shown here).  Hover your touchpad or mouse over some of the points on the scatter plot to observe their values (elevation and difficulty).      Based on what  about you know or may need look up about the R squared value and what it means, is there a relationship between difficulty and elevation?  How strong or weak is it?  Why do you suppose this is the case? Next, turn on the layer ACS Household Income Distribution Variables > Expand > County > Configure  Charts > Add Chart > Scatter Plot > X-axis:  Median Household income in past 12 months > Y-axis:  Median Home Value for owner-occupied units  > Show linear trend (shown here). The map of this data is here:   Based on what you learned in your courses about the meaning of the R squared value, is there a relationship between median home value and median household income?  How strong or weak is it?   Why do you suppose this is the case?  Do you think the same relationship would exist for other states? Note the presence of mountains in Colorado from the presence of 14-ers and the shaded relief base map that is in use.  Traditionally, it has been more expensive to build homes in the mountains and to be able to afford to live there.  Use your mouse or touchpad to click on a point in the scatterplot where the home value is high and the household income is high.  Use the shift key to select additional points (or use shift-and-band an area on the scatterplot to do so).   Use the “lower” symbol to minimize the area occupied by the table so you can see the map.  Where in Colorado are these higher income and higher home value areas?  Do they correspond with the most mountainous areas of the state?   Conversely, repeat this procedure for the lower income and lower home value areas in the state, noting any geographic region(s) in the state in which these are concentrated.  Do these areas correspond to the Great Plains region of Colorado to the east and the canyons and high plateaus of the northwest part of the state? Note that the above activity does not require you to sign in to ArcGIS Online to work through it.  This is one of the instructionally appealing aspects to modern GIS as evidenced in ArcGIS Online:  You and your students can engage with it in a variety of ways; here, without signing in.  To save your work, however, and to explore additional functionality, you would need to sign in as a named user using your school, college, university, or other account. For more activities that bridge the boundaries between geography, GIS, and mathematics, see the book that Dr Sandra Lach Arlinghaus and I authored called Spatial Mathematics. I look forward to hearing your reactions to the above short lesson. --Joseph Kerski     ... View more

I wish to take this opportunity to tell the GIS education community that you are doing important and noble work.  Many people dream about changing the world--you are actually doing it!  You are planting seeds that will grow into forests; your students will become positive change agents in a whole host of disciplines, with spatial thinking and geotechnologies on their toolbelts. Amidst all the good work you are doing, don't forget to stay active -- keep moving and keep washing - in a spatial way!  See my geography stretch video -- Flex your Finland!  Elevate your Equator!  https://youtu.be/jws9WGqRwkU   Keep washing too!  Here is my idea to keep spatially focused while washing your hands: https://youtu.be/nOvBrtDeIqg My hand washing video uses the 5 Great Lakes as a framework, but you could use any group of 5 -- cities that start with A, the five largest lakes of the world, landforms, biomes, oceans, continents, countries that are landlocked, the 5 themes of geography, or something else.    Give these a try in your own classroom and keep it lively, fun, and spatial! --Joseph Kerski  ... View more

Resources to incorporate GIS tools into core disciplines are increasingly in demand.  This article reviews one such resource, a book entitled Navigating the World with GIS:  A Companion for World Regional Geography.  The book I believe could be very useful for instructors and students seeking to not only build GIS skills, but to foster learning of core content, build spatial thinking skills, and foster critical thinking and problem solving. In my work over these past decades supporting the education community, I have met numerous innovative teachers, professors, students, researchers, deans, facility managers, librarians, and many others.  Two of the most innovative faculty members I know teach at Texas Christian University (TCU), Sean Crotty and Kyle Walker.  Not only do these instructors teach GIS, but they also are very active in spreading GIS and spatial thinking as a methodology and approach in several different disciplines, including business and geography.  We at Esri have an ongoing partnership with TCU, for example in the area of location analytics in business.  In that same work I have encountered dozens of publishers, and I have always had great respect for the publisher of this book, Kendall Hunt, and their innovative offerings in many disciplines including geography.  This book can be used in earth and environmental science, and even in sociology, but it is in geography where this book really shines brightest and has most use.  Navigating the World with GIS: A Companion for World Regional Geography lives up to its title--it is a companion to and builds upon core world regional geography concepts--scale, cultural and physical regions, changes over space and time, flow and networks, human modification of the landscape, and much more.  It does so thoughtfully, with a proper balance between focusing on how to use tools and data and the bigger questions that must be asked and grappled with as the tools and data are being used.  The authors thankfully do not attempt to deal with every aspect of geography in the book, but rather, take case studies and problems that highlight specific aspects of our world, such as the geography of a global sporting event, such as the World Cup, or maritime disputes.  I think that is the right approach to take in any massive subject such as geography, chemistry, history, and others--as educators we must inspire students' interest in the topic and not drown them in a content deluge.  I believe the most useful aspect of the book is its focus on ArcGIS Online as a learning and investigative tool:  ArcGIS Online provides enough power and functionality without requiring any software to install and without overwhelming students with too many tools.   ArcGIS Online can run on any device, anytime, and contains tools to map, analyze, visualize, and communicate the results of any investigation from local to global scale.  The labs demonstrate the power that GIS to solve problems in society:  It will be clear to the students that GIS is not just being used to teach with and learn from--that it is used in nonprofits, industry, government, and academia to make smarter decisions.  This is the same tool and my approach with many courses I have developed and placed online recently, including this environmental science course.   The book can be used as a companion to core readings and lectures in geography in its entirety, or parts of the book can be used to lend an active learning component to, for example, economic inequality, health, or demographic change.  The book can be used at the community college or university level and even in upper secondary schools.  This book has been around for several years, and indeed, when I talked with the authors about the fact that I intended to write this review, I could imagine what was going through their minds.  Writing curricular items tied to any technology as rapidly advancing as GIS is bound to show some screenshots that are out of date and data sets that have moved.  That's the case with this book but I believe it does stand up very well to the test of time.  Thus I believe it merits attention in the library of relevant teaching materials based on GIS available today.  Other resources include Chris Carter's Esri Press book Introduction to Human Geography using ArcGIS Online and my own environmental science course mentioned above and this complete course in modern GIS.   As an instructor, you have a wonderful array of teaching resources, geospatial tools, and rich data sources at your fingertips to share with your students, and Crotty and Walker's book is an excellent resource. ... View more

My colleague Barbaree Duke, long time editor at Directions Magazine, and I have written an article entitled Geography in Everyday Life:  How geography is embedded in our everyday lives.  Our interest in doing so stems from our years of promoting and supporting geographic thinking and geotechnologies, and also from our longstanding respect to Dr Reg Golledge and his article from the year 2000 that put forth several similar themes.  In our article, we: Discuss what has changed and what is the same now vs 2000 regarding geography education and GIS technology. Created a geography in everyday life infographic. Created a survey via Survey123 and a dashboard with a few short questions about how you think spatially during the day and use geographic tools and maps.  The survey is open and shareable. The article is here: https://www.gisetc.com/geography-in-everyday-life-in-2022-how-geography-is-embedded-in-our-everyday-lives/  Feel free to participate in the survey, examine the resulting infographic, and to share!   --Joseph Kerski  ... View more

If you were not able to join me for a Live Webcast on GIS Day! Maps, Apps, Music - in short, it was a mappy time!  (The live link is here:  https://fb.me/e/3PtnqfMUz) It was held on GIS Day – 12 Noon Mountain / 2pm Eastern / Wednesday 16 November 2022  and was 60 minutes in length.   Facebook Live was the platform.  It was open to all with no Facebook account required and no registration necessary.  If you access the above link, the full recording is available.  My goals in the webcast were to (1) Celebrate the users of GIS, (2) Explore why maps and geotechnologies are relevant to 21st Century problem-solving, and (3) Discover how you can make your own maps and pursue your own learning! This webcast was a fun time, including Name that Place quizzes, a GIS crossword puzzle, maps, apps, and 3D scenes, and yes, a few geo-songs!  This was the perfect venue in which to invite friends, students, or colleagues that you have always wanted to introduce GIS to. I have placed the story map that I created for the event online, here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5627b39ba8d144be9bde1b8f06e4610d  I have also placed the recordings for the event in 4 parts, here: Part 1:  Walkability survey, what is GIS Day, GIS Day resources, new resources I and others have created this year (courses, videos, lessons, guidelines). https://youtu.be/Ro3oo2kn2wY  Part 2:  ArcGIS Online demo, GIS song, relationship mapping. https://youtu.be/QQ_HBNOznko Part 3:  Living Atlas apps, quizzes, GIS crossword, GIS Data, 5 forces, 5 trends https://youtu.be/7fy5h1VKbj0  Part 4:   Key skills for GIS success, favorite maps and books, key messages, 1 last geo-song! https://youtu.be/40ll5N1HVrY I also created a resource page for strategies for introducing GIS to others--students, the general public, fellow faculty members, administrators of your school, college, or university, or others, here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/da25fdefea0a49a0be1c44b0b33f94ff --Joseph Kerski ... View more