Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

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

Of all of the educational activities I have created, tested, and used over the years, one in particular seems to be often cited by students as memorable and impactful:  Asking students to create sketch maps of their childhood neighborhood.  In this essay and set of guidelines, I describe this activity with an encouragement for you to use it or your own modification of it in your own instruction.  Why use this activity?  1.  It helps anchor the idea that humans are spatial creatures, bound to time and space, and that our brains contain mental maps of meaningful places in our past.  Our childhood maps are among the most detailed memory maps that we carry with us, of a very large scale, of a treasure trove of information: The route taken to school, your friend's house, or the public library, the mean (or nice) neighbor's dog, the tree you sat below and read next to, or climbed, even down to the cracks in your own driveway or sidewalk.  An interesting discussion as well is comparing spatial memories of those who grew up in a single residence or town vs. those students who moved multiple times in childhood.  2.  It provides an excellent source for discussion in class--this activity is engaging, Note below that I include the requirement: "Comment on the maps from at least 2 other students in the class", although this is hardly necessary:  The students are naturally curious about each others' maps, and usually comment on far more than 2 other maps. 3.  As I include the activity toward the beginning of the semester (or in a one day workshop, toward the beginning of the workshop), it greatly assists in my goal of creating community in class, where they get to know each other, and if/when they get stuck in their GIS activities, they can rely on each other, and not just me as their instructor, to get "unstuck."   Often, students build place connections with each other, "Oh, I grew up a short distance away from where you did!", or "we had a community swimming pool as well!".    4.  It provides an excellent bridge to GIS and geographic themes and concepts:  At what scale did you draw your map?  What detail did you include?  How did you symbolize trees, houses, and other features?  Did you use single or double lines for streets?  Is north at the top of your map, or not?  What balance did you choose between human-built and natural features?  What tools did you use for your map--paint, colored pencils, pens, or something else?  Did you include a legend, a scale bar, a title, or other elements?   How can maps tell stories?  What can be a useful supplement to the map--videos, photos, narrative, audio?  The latter question feeds directly into an exercise in story mapping later in the course or workshop.  5.  The activity can be used in face-to-face settings as well as in online courses.  The activity can be used inside and outside of GIS courses (such as in mapping, geography, graphic design, social studies, and others).  It can even be used as an icebreaker activity for a keynote address or a presentation.  It can be used from primary school to higher education.  In fact, I've used this activity with students aged 8 to literally 80 (the latter, in the enrichment lifelong learning courses I teach for the general public). Sample maps that students have drawn for this activity; all of the following are from undergraduates. The above map includes a key and some interesting use of shading, patterns, and color. I like the clarity of drawing on the above map, the very large scale, and the goat in the pasture! The above map reminds me of all the song lyrics and poems that have been drawn on napkins and ordinary scraps of paper over the centuries! The use of a straightedge on the above map adds quite a bit of character, and I wonder if the student had a keen sense of where due north was, and tilted the streets accordingly.  This student's unique handwriting added consistency and vibrancy to the map; also interesting to note that they chose to feature stores and prominent buildings while a simple "residential area" suited the student just fine.  The double-lined streets on the above map, labeling the streets in the middle of the lines, but not overlabeling, and the fact that not all text and buildings faced "up" was intriguing here.  It is interesting to compare what some students included, and what they omitted, and how much or little time they spent with the mapping activity, all lends variety and much discussion to this activity.  The above map I found interesting for the orientation of the houses relative to the street.  That this map was of a smaller scale than most others, but still with filling in some carefully chosen detail are intriguing in the above example. --------------------------- The readings leading up to this activity, followed by the activity itself, are given below as are lifted from the most current version of one of my online courses.  However, you could also use these readings and discussion in a short workshop as well.    Let us begin this week's readings by discussing some core fundamental principles--space, place, and time, then covering scale, map projections, geoids, coordinate systems, and a few other topics.  All of this impacts the way that maps are perceived, how the world can be represented, and thus impacts your work as someone who will use GIS day to day on the job.    Space, Place, and Time.  As you know by now in this course, GIS has value because its data is based on real locations and is concerned with the spatial patterns of those locations. These elements are fundamental to the science of geography (though there are certainly spatial elements in engineering, history, mathematics, design, and many other fields). You may have heard that history is concerned with chronos, time, while geography is concerned with choros, space. Note the difference in these two words! While this has an element of truth, it is not the complete story. History is not the only field concerned with time. Because the way we organize spaces, and the characteristics of spaces, change over time, geography and GIS and cartography are also concerned with time. When cartographic analysts study spaces, they consider how those spaces came to be, how they have changed since then, and what that space will be like in the future. Each of these space considerations has to do with time.  For example, when GIS analysts examine the confluence of two rivers, they think about the underlying rock strata and soil in that spot but also in the surrounding region, the precipitation pattern, and the topography that brought together the two rivers in this location. They examine how past floods may have contributed to the fertility of the soil or the formation of floodplains. They examine how the river junction gave rise to trade, to a source of water for agriculture or grazing and the rise of a town or city on this location. They consider the subsequent impact on land use, water quality, the diversion of the river’s tributaries into reservoirs or ditches for irrigation or for drainage, depending on whether the climate is dry (irrigation) or wet (drainage). They examine current erosion rates and shapes of past river meanders, the biodiversity of the river’s riparian zone, and how the river is connected to migration of birds or animals.   As you will explore in this course, there are many ways you can model time with GIS tools--filtering your data for specific time periods, setting up arithmetic expressions, through animations, and space time cubes, just to name a few.    Space, Time, and Place.  Furthermore, mapping is also concerned about place, not just space.  Space in geographic terms is the extent of an area. While it could be in a relative sense, such as a trade area, or an absolute sense, such as a specific wetland in Cook County Illinois. Space is generally objective, or divorced from values.  Place, on the other hand, is a bigger concept. Place is bound up in the attributes and values that is associated with a location. Therefore, place is much more of a human-derived concept than is space. Think about the place in which you grew up. You most likely still have a strong attachment to it today. You may not have visited that location in decades, but you can describe a vacant lot, a park, a pond, a trail, a city block, or another spot there in great detail (that is, at a large scale).  Not all of the memories are likely to be pleasant, either—the house with the mean dog that chased you on your bicycle, or the place where you sprained your ankle, are all bound up in your connection to place.    You will be asked, in the hands-on activity component of this week, to sketch a map of a place of memory that is important to you.   That place that you are thinking about and connected with is far more than the trees, landforms, buildings, and other natural or human-built objects on the landscape. It has meaning because of the memories and experiences that you had there. Attachment to place is one of the fundamental human experiences; it is what geographer Dr Yi-Fu Tuan termed topophilia (Links to an external site.) —love of, or attachment to, place.    For this course, think about:  How can you convey not just locations or features, but -- the sense of place in maps?   Collections of places that are similar in some ways can be thought of as a region.  A cultural region could be one with a certain housing type, or certain consumer preferences, or language, and a physical region could be one with a specific soil type, a combination of climate and vegetation (such as an ecoregion) or landforms.  Again, think about how you can convey a region in cartography.  Also, how can you convey the sense that regions often have, such as in the case of cultural regions or ecoregions, indistinct or "fuzzy" boundaries?   Should those boundaries be shown as a "zone" and if so, how?  We will examine this more in the uncertainty section of this course.      This week, you will have plenty of opportunities to develop skills with selected hands-on activities.  You will sketch a memory map, explore a variety of ways to map change over space and time, examining a wide variety of data (imagery, bird flu, and more) in the process, and all the while expand your cartographic skills.  Memory Maps.  In your readings you learned about space and place in the context of GIS and cartography and were asked to think about a place that is special to you.  These "memory maps" are a fundamental part of our humanity--we are bound to spaces as much as we are bound to other important things in life, such as people and music.  The place ideally is a location, neighborhood, street, etc., ideally, where you lived as a child, but feel free to think about a place that is special to you as an adult.   Was it the route you walked to school on?  The vacant lot where you played?  The wetland where you explored?  For me growing up in western Colorado, USA, exploring the canals when they were drained in the winter, and the "washes" or arroyos cutting through the landscape were most special to me, including one that was not far from my house.  I probably also could draw every detail of the park I walked through on the way home from middle school.  Each day of the week, I walked a different way through the park.  If it had snowed and the snow stayed long, I had great fun looking at my previous tracks.     Sketch the place you are thinking about on paper, choosing whatever scale, content, and symbols you would like, using whatever pencils or other physical items you might have available to you.  Please don't use any computer tools such as Illustrator, Canvas, or a GIS!  The idea is to make a hand-drawn map.  Don't worry about making the most wonderful looking hand-drawn map but rather, think about while you are doing so,  (1) space vs place; (2) what is easy to show on maps, and what things are more difficult to show on maps; (your feelings, the way the sun struck the rocks or trees, and so on).  (3) the symbology, scale, and other fundamental map elements.  (4)  What is easier to draw with a GIS, and what is easier to draw in hand-drawn mode with markers or pencils.  On your map, include space for a few sentences that illustrate where your place is and why it matters to you so that this information shows up when you take a picture of it.  Take a picture of your map; make sure you name the picture appropriately so your instructor can determine which photo is yours, and submit it to this week's Dropbox.   Comment on the maps from at least 2 other students in the class. Extensions to GIS The discussion points I mentioned above provide several key bridge points to GIS.  Another way to build bridges to GIS would be to geocode each of the student scanned hand-drawn maps to their childhood locations.  If you are working with K-12 students, but even with university students, make sure their names are not attached to the maps and that their own house address is not shown on the maps, for privacy reasons.  The resulting overview map could contain popups with each popup containing the scanned image.  The overall pattern of childhood locations where students are from also provides a spatial point of discussion.  Another way of incorporating GIS into this activity would be to create a survey in ArcGIS Survey123, share it with students, and ask students to fill out the survey with the town in which they grew up, and attach their sketch map to their survey response.  The resulting map is automatically generated from the survey and updates every time students input new data.  You could even keep the same survey for the following semester and over time, the results become richer with information.  -------------------- Do you include this activity or a variation of it in your own courses?  How do you structure such an activity?  If you have not included such an activity in the past, are you encouraged to do so in the future?  I look forward to hearing your reactions. --Joseph Kerski   ... 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I recently wrote an essay about 20 ingredients important for a vibrant and sustainable geospatial program in higher education. I am following that with this essay that you are reading now with 20 ingredients that are important for successful geospatial integration in schools.   This list was not created in a vacuum, but rather, it results from the work I have been engaged in with colleagues during the past several decades in supporting and fostering geospatial programs in schools around the world, I offer these 20 ingredients important for successful implementation of geotechnologies for your consideration.  In fact, the Esri schools program goes back to 1992:  My colleagues and I have a long-term commitment to working closely with schools, doing whatever we can to help them be successful with geotechnologies (GIS, remote sensing, and GPS/GNSS).  As with any "top" list, these ingredients are open to debate.  Therefore, I welcome your comments; the challenges you have faced in building and sustaining your own geospatial initiatives, and your own recommended best practices. Why is such a list and an essay needed?   I and my colleagues frequently write about the rapid evolution of GIS, education, and society in this space and in other venues such as LinkedIn, and for good reason:  These changes affect why, when, and how GIS technologies and spatial thinking can and should be taught and used in education.  We cannot 'do what we've always done' and expect GIS and spatial thinking to thrive in schools if we are not actively considering innovative ways to teach these in the future.  And if you are new to GIS, this is the perfect time to begin, for the reasons I mention here in this essay about the benefits of teaching with GIS but in short, using GIS has never been more engaging, doable, or relevant to teaching, learning, and problem solving for your students in their future workplaces.  First, I would like to remind the reader as I did in the higher education essay that there are higher, nobler goals to teaching and learning with GIS, as seen in the graphic below:   This list of 5 benefits, too, is open to debate, and indeed, they are not the only ones. In fact, in this essay, I describe 10 educational benefits that GIS offers. But whether the list includes 5 or 10 items, the key takeaway is that learning GIS software and tools is one important benefit, one which certainly will help the learner obtain their career goals.  However, learning GIS tools is a side benefit to the higher, nobler goals listed above and in the essay (the higher goals include community connections and content knowledge).  The tools change; they continually evolve:  Thus, keep focused on the most important tool of all--your brain!  GIS has always been a thinker's tool.  Progress and adoption of GIS has been occurring in primary and secondary institutions for many years.  The advent of web based GIS, with no software to install, along with streaming data services, field data collection tools such as ArcGIS Survey123, and web mapping applications such as story maps, greatly increased the rate of adoption from 2010 onwards.  GIS is being used across a wide spectrum of schools from public to private, rural to urban communities, and small to large school districts.  It is also taught by home school groups.  GIS in schools is also a global phenomenon, not confined to just the USA.  It happens wherever educators seek to use an engaging, inquiry-driven set of tools and methods in instruction.  GIS has also been adopted by many after school programs such as Scouts, 4H, geotech clubs, and others.   Success stories abound, which you can examine for encouragement and ideas, such as Roxana Ayala's story here and a wildfires-and-the-unhoused story here.  Most GIS use in schools is as an instructional tool, approach, and source for instructional content, in a variety of disciplines, such as geography, mathematics, history, science, language arts, and others.  Educators here primarily are teaching with GIS.  But there are some places and schools where teachers are teaching about GIS--that is, in named GIS courses, including in the EAST program in Arkansas, the Geospatial Semester in Virginia, and in other places, such as at Windsor High School in my own state of Colorado, where an instructor turned an advanced Geography course into a GIS course over 15 years ago. Before offering this list of 20 ingredients or recommendations, the reader needs to recognize that there is no single pathway for schools to embrace GIS.   Each school needs to carefully consider their mission, objectives, where they want to be in the next decade and beyond, their capacity, their community, their student body, their workforce needs, their existing strengths, and much more.  Indeed, as I have worked with many schools over these past many years, they have been innovating with GIS in many ways.  The best pathway for your campus might not be the same pathway for others.  I also want to remind the reader who is considering becoming involved in GIS education, or is already involved, that they need to spend most of their time listening.  I have had the honor of visiting hundreds of schools over the course of my career, both while at USGS and while at Esri, and I spend a lot of time listening to needs, challenges, concerns, and visions of educators.  I encourage you that if you do the same, your advice will be more relevant and valuable to the busy educators and administrators with whom you are working.  Lastly, this is a rapid time of change for educational institutions, for society, and for all technologies including geotechnologies.  These changes can be stressful for faculty and entire institutions, but they can also bring about innovation, as I recently wrote about in this essay on this Esri Education community space.   The 20 Ingredients The following are my 20 ingredients and recommendations that I believe are important for a vibrant and sustainable schools program, for your consideration.  You may already be engaged in many of these, and if so, share with others!  I do hope that this is helpful as you chart your pathway forward.  Start with what I consider to be 10 key strategies for teaching with GIS, here.  These include making your GIS-based instruction holistic, focused, multi-scale, varied, interesting, and visionary.  Use some new tools such as 3D visualization and artificial intelligence, and some fascinating new data sets such as the 3D buildings data, the 90 million iNaturalist observations, or the Mars 3D viewer!    A chief challenge in any geospatial initiative or focus in schools is articulating its value to faculty so that the faculty will be supported by their administrators and colleagues.  I used to work at USGS so I am going to use an analogy of a core sample of conglomerate taken from the ground:  In such a sample, think of the cobbles and stones as established subjects that everyone recognizes and understands--biology, mathematics, geography, history, economics, and so on.  Geospatial technology and spatial thinking are like the sand and soil in that sample:  If you try to pick up the sand or soil, it flows through your fingers.  The analogy is that geospatial tools and perspectives are not well understood, but they are important:  In the conglomerate, the soil is essential to bind the whole thing together:  In education, spatial thinking and analyzing change over space and time can serve as a bridge to bind disciplines together.  It can bring teachers and students into the same room, or a field experience, for interdisciplinary projects, which many researchers and teachers feel is important to 21st Century education.  Building awareness of the value of spatial, holistic, and critical thinking to education is important.  All faculty want to teach in engaging, meaningful ways that gives students tangible life and career skills; they want their students to care, and they want their students to want to be lifelong learners.  Demonstrating that these objectives can be achieved, and that these skills can be effectively and engagingly taught using an inquiry-driven toolset such as GIS, is a task that every educator interested in using GIS must be able to tackle.  We have no shortage of resources to help those educators articulate this message.         If you are working with a school as an advisor, a parent, a geomentor, or if you are a teacher aiding your teacher colleagues in their use of GIS, focus on what educators care about: Student achievement, student engagement, community connections, world issues, skill-building, problem solving, critical thinking, achievement.   Build from these discussions, rather than starting with GIS, per se.  Start with asking teachers, “What are you teaching and where in the curriculum are students not engaged or where are you using outdated and static maps or other resources you are dissatisfied with? Then focus on how GIS could enhance those parts of the curriculum and then >>> actively listening! …  Instead of saying to a school, “you need to use GIS in all of your lessons….” (which won’t resonate with anyone!). I wish to assure you educators that you don't have to be GIS experts to use it effectively: Just like with other (most?) technologies, students will grasp some GIS techniques more rapidly than you do. It is OK! Your role as educator is still critical: You are framing the inquiry. Another note that I hope is reassuring is that "Using a professional tool in education is a challenge:  Teaching is hard.  Learning is hard!  Don't feel that you need to grasp all of a technology (whether GIS or anything else) to use it successfully.   In fact, I argue here that if you or your students get comfy with just 10 skills, you and they will have superpowers. Schools will get the whole school bundle with their ArcGIS Online organization account, including ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro and other software access.  Most schools globally focus on ArcGIS Online rather than ArcGIS Pro:  The online tools provide capabilities for most needs.  Plus, ArcGIS Online has fewer technological challenges--it works on any device, is connected to vast data sets and lesson libraries.  With schools, the focus has largely been not “teaching GIS” but rather “how can I use GIS to teach ____” (science, social studies, history, math, data science, and other disciplines).   In other words, GIS is seen as an instructional approach and set of tools in an established discipline.   But I submit that I would like to see more GIS courses in secondary schools as we saw with the CAD labs that were common especially in the 1990s.  When we see a map or satellite image, we usually want to first look at our own neighborhood: Therefore, start with students' own school neighborhood and ask questions such as, “where has the nearest earthquake, tornado, or typhoon occurred over the past 60 years?  What is the median age by neighborhood in my city?  The median income?  Why do those patterns exist?” Include examining satellite images of students' own school and neighborhood as a starting point for inquiry and discussion. Start with links of data and maps that I recently taught for educators in a professional development institute, using the following syllabus:   https://community.esri.com/community/education/blog/2020/02/19/a-model-professional-development-workshop-for-educators  Then dig deeper with apps listed here,  on  https://community.esri.com/community/education/blog/2017/07/26/10-things-you-can-do-with-arcgis-online-story-maps-apps-and-spatial-analysis-workshops    These are 10 things you can do with ArcGIS Online – using the migration app, the wayback imagery, historical topographic maps, the water balance app, and others, including the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World apps:  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/52ae78c57b3a4924bff9fd490d76ee10.  Anchor each investigation in a spatial thinking discussion of what’s where, why is it there, why should we care?   Many educators start with resources and activities that do not require a sign in to ArcGIS Online.  You could use the wonderful new Esri NatGeo MapMaker or many of the one-page standards-based GeoInquiries lessons for established subjects such as AP Human Geography, Earth Science, or World History, for example.  See short activities listed in  https://esriurl.com/k12gis   More activities are here:   https://teach-with-gis-learngis.hub.arcgis.com/  and in the Learn library:   https://learn.arcgis.com     Show a few videos that I have listed here -  https://community.esri.com/community/education/blog/2020/02/28/videos-to-get-students-excited-and-knowledgeable-about-geography  Many educators start with:  Lessons and maps on  www.esri.com/geoinquiries    These all use ArcGIS Online for the maps and spatial analysis.  Start with the Level 1 exercises:  No sign in is required!  Use this model or other models and make it local to your country and region! When students / faculty want to dig deeper, continue with GeoInquiries and move to Level 2, where analysis and saving is now possible and a sign in is required.  One of my colleagues and I completed writing this new course for educators where you dig into the Living Atlas of the World – which you might use a bit of:   https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/5dc1b74ce4212b48e187e837/teaching-with-arcgis-living-atlas-of-the-world/   My colleagues and I have created many short activities (such as in Arcade, joining data to living atlas, how to create a story map, and other items) in our education space and blog on Esri Community that the essay you are reading right now is a part of:    https://community.esri.com/community/education/pages/education-blog      Some educators start with a project in mind:   Use the GeoProjects as examples:   Field mapping of trees, trash, pets, ozone, and many more.  GIS and society:  A resource to get students thinking critically about data is our collection of essays and teachable moments on   https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com    Examine the Google Maps in China, the erroneous map and data points including the 3200 degree temperature reading in Texas, the ethics of mapping, and location privacy. among others. These essays are designed to be short and implementable as conversation starters.  Maps are very useful, very powerful, but they need to be consumed and created thoughtfully and critically:  Don’t just “accept” every map you see! Start students down the coding pathway by building expressions in ArcGIS Online: Teenagers / total pop of that enumeration district and divide the result by 100 for the percentage.  This is powerful yet simple to do and with meaningful math connections (STEM in action!).   See some of my examples here:   https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/using-custom-expressions-in-arcgis-online/ba-p/884516   and on spatial joins, here:   https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/2-short-activities-that-illustrate-how-to-join/ba-p/884947  Then for deeper dives: Use ArcGIS Notebooks or some Python via  https://developers.arcgis.com  Get into the field! The Survey123 field toolset, one of three primary Esri tools to gather and map data, is easy to set up but powerful: See my example here on walkability:  Students could collect walkability data in their own community, but also, fire hydrants, tree species, traffic or pedestrian counts, weather info, noise (with a phone app), historical homes, and much more:   https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/how-walkable-is-your-community/ba-p/883382.  Consider connecting the field data collection to mapping the results, creating a dashboard, and then wrapping the survey, map, and dashboard into a story map, as I have done with the walkability example. These are straightforward to create and yet are powerful tools for teaching GIS technology and connections to the community.    Build a network with other educators in your school and in your district, and with a network of other educators to build community, confidence, and skills.  Don't feel that you need to do this alone!  One example is the T3G Community, in which there are monthly webinars and much more:  https://community.esri.com/t5/t3g/gh-p/t3g  Consider connecting what you do with GIS in the classroom to what your school could be using GIS for--to keep students safe as they are dropped off or get off the bus (logistics in pedestrian and vehicle access to your school), other campus safety initiatives, campus energy use, and campus infrastructure mapping.  For more, see this page.  Consider using web mapping applications such as story maps and instant apps as the "final product" for your students, serving the role that a term paper or report has served in the past.  To be sure, term papers and reports still have their place, but moving some assignments to these configurable web mapping apps allows students ways to be creative, and serves as an effective platform for them to present their results orally to you as their instructor and to their classmates (for examples, see this essay).  It also can serve an effective assessment tool for you as their instructor as you check their app URLs according to a predefined rubric.  These apps can also serve as components of what eventually will become the students' K-12 digital portfolio. Focus on problem solving and less on ‘how to run specific GIS tools’ in your courses; that is, teaching and modeling 'how to be a lifelong learner.’   Content knowledge matters -- to employers such as Esri and others, and it is the reality of what will be the focus on the standardized tests that students must take:  Therefore, focus on selected content that you and your students can apply GIS to: Understanding natural hazards, equity, population change, ocean currents, river systems, habitat, biomes, supply chain, transportation networks, cultural and physical regions, weather and climate, and other aspects of our world.  s), they won’t be as highly in demand in the workplace.  Resources that can serve as examples here include teaching sustainability, teaching about water with GIS, teaching mathematics using interactive mapping, and teaching about weather using GIS. I look forward to your comments. --Joseph Kerski      ... View more

Resulting from the work I have been engaged in with colleagues during the past several decades in supporting and fostering geospatial programs in colleges and universities around the world, I offer these 20 ingredients important for successful implementation of geotechnologies for your consideration.  As with any "top" list, these ingredients are open to debate.  Therefore, I welcome your comments; the challenges you have faced in building and sustaining your own program, and your own recommended best practices. Why is such a list and an essay needed?   I and my colleagues frequently write about the rapid evolution of GIS, education, and society in this space and in other venues such as LinkedIn, and for good reason:  These changes affect why, when, and how GIS technologies and spatial thinking can and should be taught and used in education.  We cannot 'rest on past laurels' and expect our programs to thrive in higher education if we are not actively considering innovative ways to teach in the future.  First, I would like to remind the reader that there are higher, nobler goals to teaching, learning, and research with GIS, as seen in the graphic below: This list of 5 benefits, too, is open to debate, and indeed, they are not the only ones. In fact, in this essay, I describe 10 educational benefits that GIS offers. But whether the list includes 5 or 10 items, the key takeaway is that learning GIS software and tools is an important benefit, one which certainly will help the learner obtain their career goals.  However, learning GIS tools is a side benefit to the higher, nobler goals listed above and in the essay (the higher goals include community connections and content knowledge).  The tools change; they continually evolve:  Thus, keep focused on the most important tool of all--your brain!  GIS has always been a thinker's tool.  I would also like to propose to the reader that there are 3 facets, or audiences, of education to support and that could benefit by the geographic approach, spatial thinking, and GIS:  Instruction (which affects students and faculty), research (again which affects students and faculty), and administration.  Administration could include campus facilities, recruitment and retention, alumni network management, campus safety, and anything else that helps the campus be safe, energy efficient, well managed, and be able to grow to meet future needs.  I also submit that there should be 2 major areas of education focus:  1.  A deeper understanding of GIS, and 2.  A wider understanding of GIS.   A deeper understanding means thinking about and working with GIS as a platform, rather than just "a set of tools at version 3.x".   GIS in its true "GISsystems" meaning is more relevant than ever before, as it has evolved into a platform that enables people to gather data in the field, or from a spreadsheet, or imported from a business system or statistical package, or from data libraries including streaming data services, or from a UAV, or via other means, map that data (including symbolizing, projecting, filtering, and other tools), analyzing that data (using desktop, cloud, or server arrays of capacity), and communicating that data (via web mapping applications such as story maps, dashboards, or instant apps; customized sites such as from Experience Builder), custom applications from working with Jupyter Notebooks or the SDKs and APIs, and/or any other type of multimedia including infographics and video. Importantly, this deeper understanding includes the essence of why GIS was created in the first place--that it leads to action--smarter, more sustainable, equitable, and resilient decision-making.  What I mean by the "wider" understanding of GIS is that the spatial thinking and analysis that it fosters needs to be embedded throughout the campus--not only in teaching, research, and facilities as I mentioned above, but in multiple disciplines.  In short, GIS is just too valuable with its focus on change over space and time to be confined to geography, environmental science, and GIScience on campus:  It needs to be in civil engineering, mathematics, economics, geo-and-ocean-and-atmospheric sciences, sociology, business, urban planning, data science, language arts, biology, and others. I would argue that GIS and spatial thinking can benefit any discipline concerned about empowering their students to be change agents who are able to frame and solve meaningful problems --which should be every discipline.    Before offering this list of 20 ingredients or recommendations, the reader needs to recognize that there is no single pathway for higher education institutions to embrace GIS.  Colleges and universities need to carefully consider their mission, objectives, where they want to be in the next decade and beyond, their capacity, their student body, their workforce needs, their existing strengths in spatial thinking and technology, and much more.  Indeed, as I have worked with campus over these past many years, campuses have been innovating with GIS in many ways.  The best pathway for your campus might not be the same pathway for others.  I also want to remind the reader who is considering becoming involved in GIS education, or is already involved, that they need to spend most of their time listening.  I have the honor of visiting 35 campuses annually (example here), with over 100 webinars each year to campuses, and I spend a lot of time listening to needs, challenges, concerns, and visions.  I encourage you that if you do the same, your advice will be more relevant and valuable to the busy educators and administrators with whom you are working.  Lastly, this is a rapid time of change for educational institutions, for society, and for all technologies including geotechnologies.  These changes can be stressful for faculty and entire institutions, but they can also bring about innovation, as I recently wrote about in this essay on this Esri Education community space.   The 20 Ingredients The following are my 20 ingredients and recommendations that I believe are important for a vibrant and sustainable higher education geospatial program, for your consideration.  You may already be engaged in many of these, and if so, share with others!  I do hope that this is helpful as you chart your pathway forward.  1.      Build a trusted, long-term partnership among industry (with Esri and others), educational institutions, and educational professional societies.  My colleagues and I, for example, have served on many advisory boards in the past and at present, and are willing to come alongside with you to chart a pathway forward.  Plus, of course, these partnerships can aid in gaining meaningful career pathways for your students, as we are always hiring as GIS continues to grow.  Regularly read our postings in this space and tap into the resources on effectively teaching modern GIS, integrating imagery, including coding, and other topics.   These postings are not created in a vacuum; rather, many result of our long term collaboration with the education community!  2.  Establish and fund a geospatial librarian(s).  Our colleague Professor David Cowen recently published an ebook that I highly recommend, entitled University Libraries as Providers of GIS Services:  A Guide.    On many campuses, this geospatial librarian is tasked with providing GIS training, services, coordination, and data hosting, and even more importantly, assisting faculty and students throughout the campus in their use of GIS.  3.      UAV/Drones are a hot topic right now.  Enrich your Remote Sensing offerings with existing or planned UAV/Drones projects on campus, integrating mapping and analysis, including the services of the equipment and student/faculty expertise to university marketing and media staff, and other programs on campus.   In other words, make sure the campus understands that UAVs are not just pretty pictures or videos, but can be a meaningful component in your GIS program, and help the campus become more sustainable, energy efficient, and aid in infrastructure mapping.  4.      A partnership between research and teaching -> and the Facilities Management, recruitment, alumni network, and other administrative people on campus so they see the value of using GIS as well for recruitment and funding, campus safety, infrastructure mapping, energy efficiency in buildings. This must be be regularly communicated to the provost and others who are regularly in budget/enrollment meetings. 5.      Implement SSO Single Sign On to increase access and to make life easier to students, faculty, and the ArcGIS campus administrator(s). 6.      Establish a campus-wide institutional agreement for Esri technology if the campus does not already have one.  This greatly aids in accessing GIS for all disciplines on campus, enabling the "GIS for everyone" goals mentioned above.  7.      Regularly communicate with other faculty on campus to help them think spatially and use GIS in mathematics, economics, business, sociology, civil engineering, history, humanities, and elsewhere to increase student engagement, career pathways, interdisciplinary research and development opportunities, and to increase spatial, holistic, and critical thinking and problem solving throughout campus. 8.      Consider innovative mixtures of modes of instruction – hybrid, F2F, online – and credential offerings – microcredentials, certificates, degrees, and  GIS courses that meet requirements in natural and social sciences, computer science, etc. 9.      Showcase student work on campus media posts, newsletters, alumni networks, in their data portals, ArcGIS Hub, ArcGIS Online main campus page, and in other ways – along the lines of "a map being worth 1000 pictures."  Provide regular venues for students to present often at meetings, conferences, and other events. 10.   Connect students with meaningful internships and job positions in the region and beyond. Forging partnerships with industry, business partners, government agencies, nonprofits.  Research who in the area that the campus serves already regularly uses ArcGIS and GIS technology day-to-day in their work.   11.  Embedding a rigorous amount of app development and coding into GIS course offerings, as GIS continues to become a cloud-enabled technology platform.  12.   Establish a database connecting those in government, business, and nonproits who need student assistance with for their GIS projects with students on campus willing to do the work.  13.   Make fieldwork a key component of many courses:  Start with short activities on campus that can use easy-to-implement tools such as ArcGIS Survey123. Students could map trees, ADA ramps, pedestrian counts, light poles, bike paths, and more, and could participate in the Esri campus mapping program.  14.   Thread ethics, developing healthy critical perspectives of all data including mapped data, rigorous attention to metadata and “trustworthiness” of data, into courses in meaningful and hands-on ways, as is discussed here  https://spatialreserves.wordpress.com . 15.   Use the AI ArcGIS tools and discuss their implications.  These tools are already in many ArcGIS products and will continue to expand as they change GIS in the process. 16.   Regularly assess which student work could be shared (with all caveats about permissions for data and permissions from the student) beyond a single university department within the university and outside the university, so these amazing maps and analysis students create are regularly seen by others.  Encourage students to include their web maps and apps in their digital portfolios as story maps, web maps, and other media.  Focus on students as a vital part of your campus communicators!  Together with you as faculty, students can be a powerful force to build meaningful relationships with organizations in the community and beyond.  17.   Consider ArcGIS Online and SaaS solutions as key components of introductory GIS courses and courses in other disciplines, with the objective of generating student interest with an easier to use approach tool for mapping, analysis, and communication.  Use ArcGIS Pro in intermediate and advanced courses. 18.   Focus on problem solving and less on ‘how to run specific GIS tools’ in many courses; i.e. teaching and modeling 'how to be a lifelong learner.’ 19.   Content knowledge matters to employers such as Esri and others – students need to focus on selected content that they can apply GIS to; in other words, if they “just” know GIS, and not, say, demographics or hydrologic processes or natural hazards or some other field(s), they won’t be as highly in demand in the workplace.  20.   Focus on your campus strengths while considering the community, region, and areas beyond in which you serve, F2F or virtually:   If your strength is water and natural resources management, consider tying that to your future GIS program offerings.  Ditto for other strengths.  When I visited Western Kentucky University, I noted how they tied their GIS program to data science in part for pathways for their students to find employment as data analysts at the nearby Fruit of the Loom headquarters.  When I visited Western Illinois University, I noted how they tied their GIS program to two areas where the campus was already strong:  Agriculture and Meteorology.   While you focus on strengths, however, still keep in mind the holistic 'systems' thinking that GIS needs to foster.  I look forward to your comments. --Joseph Kerski    ... 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