Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

We have always been fascinated with our home:  The Earth.  Our oasis of life in the cosmos has been the subject of poetry, philosophy, music, paintings, scientific investigation, and—maps.  For centuries, maps stirred imaginations, inspired explorations of the unknown, and helped us understand our planet.  Far from the static documents of the past, today’s maps are interactive and digital, created by people using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS tools, methods, and data are essential to conservation and wise management and caring for the Earth, as is evident in the success stories in this conservation blog.  But unless GIS is taught and learned, it cannot be applied to conservation by decision makers.  How can teaching and learning with GIS be done, where should its principles be taught, and what benefits does GIS in conservation education offer?    Benefits of Teaching and Learning with GIS The benefits that teaching and learning with GIS offers includes spatial thinking, critical thinking, problem-based learning, data fluency, community connections, and others I list here.  GIS instruction fosters each of the Center for Ecoliteracy’s six core ecological concepts:  Networks, nested systems, cycles, flows, development, and dynamic balance. GIS allows variables to be input, modeled and modified so that the dynamics of environmental processes can be studied. Hungerford and Volk (1991) defined nine key ecological concepts necessary for environmental education programs:  Individuals and populations, interactions and interdependence, environmental influences and limiting factors, energy flow and nutrient cycling, community and ecosystem concepts, homeostasis, succession, humans as members of ecosystems, and ecological implications of human activities and communities.  GIS can enhance the teaching of these concepts as well as specific conservation topics such as biofuels and ecotones that I describe in the book Essentials of the Environment (Kerski and Ross 2006). Students on a Field Trip at Indiana Dunes.  Photograph by Joseph Kerski.   Connecting Learners with Real World Data and Issues Connecting students with real-world data and issues builds spatial bridges in the brain and appeals to multiple ways of learning. Students learn to transfer knowledge, to inquire strategically, and to solve problems with real data.  Spatial analysis appeals to today’s visual learners.  Using GIS provides a way of exploring a rich body of content and a framework for holistic thinking about the world. GIS provides a set of skills grounded in content standards and fosters critical thinking about data and methods.  These marketable skills help students get their “dream jobs” across many fields, including but not limited to conservation.  Students using GIS grapple with current, relevant issues including water quality, invasive species, climate change, and energy and food production, from local to global scale.  GIS enables these issues to be analyzed spatially because they all occur somewhere and change over space and time.  Students understand the big picture and how patterns and trends are related. Students become involved digital citizens that can use technology in meaningful ways to ask the “what if” questions, test hypotheses, and model scenarios.     Connections to Environmental Literacy and the UN SDGs Because GIS for teaching uses the same tools and approaches used by scientists, teaching with GIS also adheres well to the NAAEE’s four components of environmental literacy (NAAEE 2011): competencies, knowledge, dispositions, and environmentally responsible behavior.   Teaching with GIS also connects well with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including water quality and quantity, energy, climate, and sustainable urbanization and agriculture, and more.    Student collecting water quality data.  Photograph by Joseph Kerski. I contend that conservation principles and perspectives are too important to wait until students are at the university level but need to be taught and learned earlier in life. How can these GIS approaches be applied in the primary and secondary school environment?    Best Practices in Teaching and Learning Conservation Skills and Themes with GIS One project that I was honored to be a part of was this collaborative effort in climate and sustainability between Esri, a university, and secondary schools. The story map of activities demonstrates how climate and sustainability instruction was enriched and how students and faculty became engaged. I also contend that using GIS to teach conservation principles can and should be done across many disciplines, including environmental science, economics, psychology, data science, business, computer science, geography, GIScience, engineering, planning, and others. Teaching with GIS is most effective when it is action-oriented and includes hands-on activities.   Agricultural data on crops, grazing, and farming practices can be investigated using ArcGIS Online, the ArcGIS Living Atlas apps on water and ocean variables, changes in land cover, and others can serve as primary source research tools, and students can use tools such as iNaturalist and ArcGIS Survey123 to collect data that can then be mapped and analyzed.  They use ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, spatial statistics, and other tools to perform species distribution modeling, habitat prediction, and multivariate clustering for bioclimate region identification through these and other lessons. Students then use ArcGIS dashboards, instant apps, and story maps to communicate their results to their classmates, instructor, and even to the community beyond their own campus.  These visualizations encourage them and others to take action about the urban greenway or community gardens.  Students gain specific skills such as creating expressions, performing analysis, and data management. Through these approaches, students tackle ethical issues surrounding data and mapping.  In their future workplaces in academia, nonprofit, government, and industry, they become empowered to be positive change agents. Northeast Montana.  Photograph by Joseph Kerski. To learn more about ArcGIS solutions in conservation, visit our webpage. References Hungerford, Harold R., and Trudi L. Volk. 1998. Curriculum Development in Environmental Education for the Primary School: Challenges and Responsibilities. Essential Readings in Environmental Education. Champaign, IL: Stipes. Kerski, Joseph J., and Ross, Simon.  2006.  Essentials of the Environment.  Hodder Education, 336 p.  NAAEE. 2011. Developing a framework for assessing environmental literacy: Executive Summary. NSF project report. Washington, DC: North American Association for Environmental Education. ... View more

Join me for my annual GIS Day Live Webcast, where I will celebrate, discuss, and illustrate what people around the world are doing with Geographic Information Systems.  This webcast will include geo-songs, geo-quizzes, the definition of and impact of GIS to build a better world, and much more.  Yes, it will be recorded and published for those who wish to dig deeper into the links I share, or who are not able to join me in the live webcast.  Important:  This will be held the day before the official GIS Day, in part so that you all can host your own events or attend someone else’s event on GIS Day.   I am also conducting my live webcast on this particular day because I will be spending the rest of the week with the wonderful faculty and students at Texas Tech University. The live webcast will take place on Tuesday 19 November 2024, at 6:00 pm (1800) USA Eastern Time, 4:00pm (1600) USA Mountain Time, and 3:00pm (1500) USA Pacific Time.  See this video I made in the field to get a sense of what the webcast will be about: https://youtu.be/XzhTnYeUwWA?si=rCzgLPIaxyUoPa7R See this story map to get a more detailed view of what I will cover, and the links I will feature: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/64e3834e86f34d579a9d86022b6b0dee To join me for the live session: The webcast is free but you do need to register in advance, via: https://esri.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0oduyorDkrGtMqNWurkIkYLMmputtwpaXk After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. I will be conducting the webinar via Zoom, and all you need is a web browser and internet connection to attend.  The webinar will be free, fun, relevant, and fast-paced, with content on the following: What is GIS? Geo-songs! Books about mapping! Map is a verb, too! How does GIS help society? How to learn more about GIS? My favorite web mapping applications and GIS developments over the past year. Was Shakespeare a GIS-er? Geo-Quiz! Trends in GIS. Forces in GIS. Key skills important in your GIS journey.       ... View more

In this essay I share a hands-on workshop with a goal of assisting faculty who wish to teach about climate principles, processes, and events by incorporating spatial and temporal thinking with modern GIS tools and spatial data.  The content for the workshop is here: https://www.josephkerski.com/a-climate-gis-workshop/ This resource includes: --fundamentals --points of discussion --10 hands-on activities. --Resources for further exploration. I have tested and taught this workshop in online and face-to-face settings this year and have refined the materials each time.  This material is suitable for undergraduate or graduate students, and the first few activities can be used in secondary schools, as well.   Some background with GIS is helpful but not required.  All of the activities use web GIS--apps and ArcGIS Online analysis tools.  All of the data for the activities is public open source data.  About half of the activities require a log in to ArcGIS Online.  For deeper dives with ArcGIS Pro, I provide links to tutorials and lessons.  I am not a climate scientist and therefore this workshop does not offer a deep dive into climate modeling:  I provide links to these types of resources in the above workshop materials.  However, as a geographer and educator, my goal is to empower faculty to teach important topics such as climate with GIS, and by extension, their students to learn climate processes and events. I also hope to encourage students to consider how they can use GIS to understand climate as they journey forward in their careers.  Why?  Because every career ultimately hinges on climate--from supply chains in business to management of natural resources, from energy to water, and so much more.  I do hope this is useful to many!   --Joseph Kerski  ... View more

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.  With the advent of modern web based GIS tools and open spatial data portals, there is no shortage of resources to teach about hurricanes and typhoons.  Let's just focus on resources to teach and learn about Hurricane Helene and Milton, which struck the USA in September and October 2024, and by extension, touch on other hurricanes and typhoons. One of the best places to start is the Esri Disaster Response program, and then select > hurricanes, where you will find a real-time weather feed, the hurricane aware mapping app, and other maps and apps on Hurricane Helene, Milton, a Helene before-and-after swipe map, and others.  I often use this web map in ArcGIS Online to show students the grim reminder that hurricanes are not just common to the southern USA, but occur in the Indian and Pacific Ocean as typhoons, all of which are visible here.   Use this low elevation coastal zones global data set in ArcGIS Online (first, examine its metadata) to investigate the double-hazard that occurs when a hurricane strikes a coast that is at low elevation for quite a long distance inland from the coast.  Ask students to examine the pattern of hurricanes:  The direction they move, the pattern of movement, and the time of year when most occur.  Then, ask them to measure selected hurricane tracks.  Which was longer--Helene or Milton?  Add population density or a cities layer to the map and compare the hurricane tracks to populated places.  Change the basemap to terrain with labels, zoom to western North Carolina, and discuss why Helene was so devastating to people living in the river valleys there.  Compare that map against this dashboard showing landslides in the area. One powerful teaching technique is to compare the single lines representing hurricanes and typhoons with selected hurricane wind swaths, such as this one for Milton, and satellite imagery (such as this NOAA site, which also explains how imagery is gathered during hurricanes).  Hurricanes may be represented as single lines on some maps, but the teachable moment here is that they are so destructive because their swaths are much, much wider.  Ask students to measure the width of, say, the Milton wind swath, in ArcGIS Online, which should bring some wide-eyed amazement with students, no matter what their age.  Ask students to examine this map of total rainfall across Florida from Hurricane Milton, I ask them to study the rainfall patterns, and the patterns related to population density and to cities, and then compare the amounts to annual rainfall in their own community.  The amount of rain from this single storm in Florida is approximately the same as we receive in Colorado, where I work, in an entire year.   That, along with articles estimating 40 trillion gallons of rain falling, is pretty staggering. Another aspect of hurricanes is the large amount of debris they leave behind--not only human-constructed, but trees, shrubs, and other aspects of the natural world.  Show this dashboard, for example, and discuss the logistics and amount of debris needed to be moved, in just this one single county in Florida.  How much volume is it?  Convert the volume into something understandable--would it fill an entire gymnasium? An entire stadium?  Multiple stadiums?  Where is the debris moved FROM, and where is it moved TO? What happens to the debris afterward? Is it covered, converted into recyclable material, is the vegetation separated from the human-constructed debris so it can be converted into biofuels?    If you need a ready-made lesson and more background readings focused on hazards with GIS, see the learn ArcGIS library documentation, the geoinquiries collection, and my colleague Dr Tomaszewski's book on GIS for Disaster Management. Another powerful aspect to teaching and learning with GIS is that students and faculty are not confined to just consuming information that others have mapped, but they can create their own maps and apps using ArcGIS Instant apps, story maps, dashboards, experience builder, and other fascinating, powerful, yet easy-to-configure tools.  This set of lessons I wrote, for example, guides you through many of these tools.    This article touches on just a few resources; many more can be investigated using data libraries such as via this search in ArcGIS Online, on local, regional, national, and international data hub sites, via Esri sites such as this one, and via other data portals.   It's easy to get discouraged when examining the extent of natural disasters such as these, and so I close with these ideas:  1.  Using the case studies on the Esri disaster pages and those you find elsewhere, show how GIS tools are helping people plan resiliency before disasters strike, provide emergency services while disasters are occurring, and plan recovery efforts after the storm ends.  GIS really is a technology that benefits the planet, and show additional example on this GIS for Good set of pages.  2. Discuss with students how they might become involved with helping after these disasters occur:  Crowdsourced mapping efforts, through relief agencies, contributing their GIS expertise, and in other ways.  I keep thinking of what Mr Rogers always told kids on his show after a disaster, "always look for the helpers."           Selected images and mapping tools described in this essay. --Joseph Kerski  ... View more

In a new storymap and a series of videos, I explain why and how you can enhance qualitative social science research with GIS.  This storymap and these videos are the result of collaboration that I have been in over the past year with colleagues at Esri, led by our Chief Scientist, Dr Dawn Wright, and in conversations with many in academia during that time period.  It is exciting to see many qualitative and social science tools, methods, and data sets become available in the ArcGIS ecosystem.  Certainly much work remains, but we are firmly on this pathway and there is no looking back.  If you are an educator, you can use the activities described in the storymap as instructional content in your GIS, sociology, cultural geography, research methods, and other courses, and to spark conversations around the issues raised by the activities in your online and face-to-face courses.  If you are a researcher or GIS professional, you can use this content for actionable research methods, approaches, and data sets, to build on or to generate your own ideas from. I have also created video content to support the above storymap, arranged in five parts, here: Part 1 of 5.    Part 2 of 5. Part 3 of 5. Part 4 of 5. Part 5 of 5.  The story map begins with the purpose of the storymap and the research and development of qualitative and social science tools and approaches with GIS at Esri and beyond Esri.   I discuss the social science collaborative at Esri, and then review types of data, spatial, quantitative, and qualitative, the relationships between methodologies, the research cycle, This is all contained in the first video above.   Next, the storymap covers collection, mapping, analysis, and communication of qualitative and social science research and how tools such as ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Hub, field tools, and others in the ArcGIS ecosystem can support these types of research.  I then describe a brief history of the social implications of GIS, social science examples including one of my favorites, The Voices of the Grand Canyon, and a story map on Electric Vehicle attitudes, and another one from grade 6 students and their teacher focused on the Four Corners area in southwest Colorado.  I then remind the reader about the higher, nobler goals of using GIS through my study with a colleague of the Lakota language.  This is all contained in the second video above.  Next, I discuss how social science perspectives are increasingly integral to ‘standard textbooks’ and to ecological studies; I dig into visual storytelling research and methods, and make the case that GIS use outside of GIScience is expanding—into sociology, fine arts, economics, mathematics, music, and other fields.  I then discuss how social science methods can be incorporated into a neighborhood study using my own freeway impacts study.  I then illustrate how ethics can be effectively taught using GIS and the methods described in this story map.  This is all contained in the third video above.  The next section describes how these perspectives can be used to create a GIS lesson that combines behavior, business analytics, and art.  Data collection, creation, and analysis tools are then described, followed by sharing with ArcGIS Hub, instant apps, dashboards, and story maps.  It is the combination of configurable apps, such as my walkability study, that makes these tools approachable and doable, even by non-GIS people.  This is all contained in the fourth video above.  In the final section, I discuss how big qualitative datasets can be explored, mapped, and analyzed, with an encouragement to not stop at mapping your data, but to conduct some spatial analysis on the mapped data.  I describe participatory field sketching with ArcGIS Survey123 as one method, that my colleague and I used in our survey and study on “Where is the American Midwest?”.  I follow this with recommendations, considerations, and challenges that still remain with regards to qualitative social science data and methods in a GIS.  Finally, I describe ways to move forward in your own learning in this area—articles, lessons, and books.  This is all contained in the fifth video above.  Selected images from the story map and videos appear below. I do hope this is useful and I welcome your input as to how you use these resources and what additional resources you would like to see in the qualitative and social sciences sphere. --Joseph Kerski               ... View more

Sometimes as students or new GIS professionals, we get so immersed in GIS tools, data, and deadlines for our projects or courses, that we may lose sight of the larger objectives. In this list below, and this accompanying video, I explain what I feel are the most important goals in learning and using GIS. 1) Fostering an attitude of curiosity.  Curiosity will open up many doors in education and in the workplace.  Curiosity leads to new research ideas, new data to explore, and new tools to try.  Even more importantly, curiosity teaches you to be tenacious about solving problems, which will serve you well your whole life long. Some of the best ways of fostering curiosity are to read widely and often, to get out into the field, and interact with colleagues.  2) How to ask thoughtful questions.  Asking questions is key to solving problems.  I encourage you who are students to ask questions that your professors are not even asking you.  I encourage you who are in the workplace to ask questions that your employer is not even asking you!   People asking thoughtful questions who seek to help organizations achieve their goals are the types of employees that we at Esri and in other organizations are seeking.  Remember that not all of your questions may have answers right away.  That’s ok!  Keep those questions jotted down for solving in the future.  Sometimes the most fruitful time thinking of questions to ask takes place when your fingers are not even touching the keyboard! 3) How to think holistically.  Given the interconnected issues confronting our communities, regions, countries, and world, with dynamic forces impacting the planet, plus 8 billion humans continuously shaping the planet, holistic thinking is more important than ever.  Consider how land use, weather, and plant life affects water quality, which in turn affects human health, agriculture, and animal habitat.  The list of similar  connections on our dynamic planet number in the millions.  We need those who consider, “If we alter these variables, it will affect those variables.” “If we alter the variables in this part of the world, it will affect the variables in that part of the world.”  “The interaction of these forces at this scale will affect the interaction at that scale.” 4) How to think in terms of systems. Systems thinking is a natural outgrowth of holistic thinking.  Systems thinking considers that the ecosphere is connected to the biosphere, the atmosphere, the cryosphere (ice), the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, the anthroposphere (the human sphere), and other spheres.  Systems thinking is also deeply tied to traditional Indigenous ecological content knowledge.  Considering the carbon cycle, the hydrologic cycle, and other cycles is an important related skill.  Cycles and systems need to be carefully considered in any decision about the planet.  5) How to think spatially—above, on, and below the Earth’s surface.   All of the aforementioned systems and cycles are spatial.  Spatial thinking can help us understand and solve all of the key 21 st Century problems of our world—including the UN SDGs—energy, economic inequalities, water, health, natural hazards resilience, education, and all the rest—are spatial problems.   Solving these problems through bivariate statistical analysis in a GIS, extracting and analyzing features from imagery, and joining data to online data services for a richer understanding of changes over space and time are just three practical ways to implement spatial thinking in a GIS. 6) How to gain expertise in a knowledge domain.  You who are reading this will have one or more knowledge domains (soil chemistry, renewable energy, population dynamics, and so on) in which you focus deeply on.  Gaining knowledge in a domain area is commendable, and is needed even in software companies such as Esri and our partners. In other words, we don’t just want people who know how to run software, but have domain knowledge.  However,  (1) don’t get too focused on your own domain or project that you lose sight of holistic and systems thinking described above, and (2) recognize that you cannot gain all content knowledge on your own given the limited time on your hands.  That is in part why we need the community of practitioners, theoreticians, educators, and others from whom we can gain expertise so that we can supplement our own domain knowledge and—equally importantly—connect our own knowledge to other domains.  7) How to gain skills in geotechnologies, communications, spatial statistics, and other skills. Developing your network will serve you well during your entire career.  We cannot possibly be knowledgeable in all areas of GIS—and thankfully, we don’t need to.   The geospatial community has a wonderful history of sharing data, content knowledge, and skills with each other and with those new to the community.  Learn how to gain knowledge and skills through people, networks, associations, books, blog essays, multimedia, tools, lessons, courses, degree and certificate programs, and in other ways.  8 )  How to build your community.  Focus on the areas in which you can add value to your employer, university/college, or the community, and don’t put extra pressure on yourself to learn everything—that’s an impossible task.  GIS tools evolve:  Keep the most important tool in mind—your brain.  Keep your brain first and foremost as the tool to focus on as a lifelong learner.  Since its inception in the 1960s, GIS has always been, first and foremost, a thinker’s tool.  9) How and why to care for the Earth and its people.   Caring for the planet and its people are at the heart of why and how GIS was created and why people are so passionate about it.  Having a deep spatial connection and empathy about Planet Earth, which geographer Yi Fu Tuan described as Topophilia, is developed over a lifetime.  Place connection is enriched by meaningful and frequent field experiences, which I encourage you to pursue, at work and outside of work.  Consider the key issues confronting our planet and its people:  land use change, natural hazards, inequities, human health, sustainable agriculture and energy, climate, biodiversity loss—the list seems daunting.  However, I cannot think of a more caring, expert, committed group of people who are dedicated to helping the planet than the GIS community.  This despite the problems we face, gives me hope going forward.   10) How to empower yourself and others to take action.  Using GIS has never been just about gaining head knowledge or skills.  Rather, the goal of learning and using GIS has always been to put knowledge and skills into action:  What are you going to do about the urban greenway, the soil chemistry, the water quality, the storm surge resistance, and in other areas of our communities and in our world?  How can you encourage others to get involved?  Certainly the content you share with others via your web mapping applications such as instant apps, story maps, and dashboards will help, but I also encourage you to be ready to articulate why what you do matters.   Make sure that this articulation can be understood by non-GIS professionals in practical ways (as I demonstrate here ).  You are making your organization or your community more energy efficient, safer, more sustainable, and so on. Are you surprised by any in this list of 10?  What would you include that I am leaving out?  I look forward to your comments.   ... View more

A new storymap and a series of videos explains why and how GIS professionals can and should connect with the education community.  If you are a GIS educator, you can use this content as an instructional content aid in your courses, and to spark conversations in your online and face-to-face courses.  If you are a GIS professional outside of education, you can use this content for concrete ideas on how to connect with schools, colleges, and universities, and to better understand how to continue your own learning about GIS in your organization. I have created video content to support the above storymap, arranged in four parts, here: Part 1:  Connecting GIS professionals with the education community 1 of 4 Part 2:  Connecting GIS professionals with the education community 2 of 4 Part 3:  Connecting GIS professionals with the education community 3 of 4 Part 4:  Connecting GIS professionals with the education community 4 of 4   In part 1, I discuss my own pathway that has roots in nonprofit organizations, academia, government agencies, and private industry, in the hopes it will encourage the GIS community in two ways:  1.  You don't have to stay in the same organization your whole career. I have moved among many organizations, and so can you.  2.  Geospatial technology and spatial thinking will be valuable to you no matter in which organization you work.  I then lay out key challenges in GIS in education, and how the GIS community can provide leadership.  Five key forces that bring us to a key moment in GIS in education and society are then investigated, with live demos provided as examples along the way. In part 2, I encourage the community not to stop at the map, but to think of GIS as analytical tools, and not just a mapping toolset.  I also encourage the community to think of GIS as a toolset that is meant to encourage people to take action--about the urban greenway, water quality, walkability, hazards resilience, economic viability of a community, and other relevant and important topics of global importance that increasingly affect our everyday lives.  I then discuss the stool of geoliteracy, and how GIS has changed over the past decades and how modern web enabled and AI-enabled GIS can be conceptualized and used to connect GIS professionals and educators.  I then grapple with the question, "What and how should people learn GIS nowadays", given the aforementioned changes.  I discuss how, in each GIS based lesson, there is always a higher, more noble goal, beyond acquiring GIS skills.  I discuss key resources such as the Geospatial Technology Competency Model and the Ikigai diagram from Japan.  In part 3, I explain the 20 ingredients for a vibrant and sustainable higher education GIS program, and 20 ingredients for a vibrant and sustainable schools GIS program.  I show examples of storymaps that students have created that illustrates the empowering nature of GIS for teaching and learning, and for taking action.  I explain progress in each sector of education along with challenges that remain.  I then discuss how GIS professionals can be a positive influence on education and how they can effectively engage with educators and students.  I then detail how modern GIS tools and approaches can be effectively taught and learned, including no-sign-in Web GIS methods and tools, discussions and case studies in ethics, and collecting, mapping, analysis, and communicating the results of field data using ArcGIS Survey123, ArcGIS Online Map Viewer, Online analysis tools, and dashboards, instant apps, and story maps. In part 4, I encourage the community to go outside their comfort zone with several examples, the top 5 skills to nurture in your GIS career pathway, and why to connect with the education community.   I hope this storymap and set of videos are helpful, and I look forward to your comments. ... View more