Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

One of our colleagues and leaders in spatial thinking in education, Dr. Diana Stuart Sinton, has written a book entitled The People's Guide to Spatial Thinking, along with colleagues Sarah Bednarz, Phil Gersmehl, Robert Kolvoord, and David Uttal.  As the name implies, the book provides an accessible and readable way for students, educators, and even the general public to understand what spatial thinking is and why it matters.  It "help us think across the geographies of our life spaces, physical and social spaces, and intellectual space."  Dr. Sinton pulls selections from the NRC's Learning to Think Spatially report and ties them to everyday life.  In so doing, she also provides ways for us in the educational community to think about teaching these concepts and skills in a variety of courses.   Indeed, as she points out, spatial thinking is particularly essential within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as geography. The People's Guide to Spatial Thinking. Particularly because spatial thinking has no established "home" in the curriculum, I believe this book is an important contribution to help educators and everyone realize how and why these concepts are critically important to 21st Century education and society.  I also believe that tools such as geotechnologies that are now easily available to teach spatial thinking skills and concepts merit serious consideration in the curriculum at many different levels and in many different disciplines.  I highly encourage you to order the book from the National Council for Geographic Education, read it, and comment on this blog post in terms of your reactions to it. ... View more

If you are a reader of this blog and are an advocate of the use of GIS in education, it should be obvious by now that live web maps, many of which are powered by ArcGIS Online, are all around us.  They can be used in a variety of ways to enhance teaching and learning.  But did you also know that an expanding number of them are tied to live webcams?   The examples below represent a small fraction of these; I encourage you to share your own favorites by commenting on this blog. I created storymaps of Bruges, Belgium, and the Front Range of Colorado.  In each map, select the webcams tab to examine such places as The Markt and the foothills near Golden to teach about current weather, landforms, land use, climate, cultural diversity, vegetation, and more. The following maps were created by my colleague here at Esri, Matt Artz, who runs his own excellent blog on GIS and science. You can use the Oregon State University's Facilities Dashboard to see what's happening on campus, but also for inspiration for the storymaps that you might build for your own campus. Use the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Advisories by Country live web map as a useful resource in planning your next trip, but also for a good model on how to build a storymap with thumbnail maps and web sites instead of photographs. Use the Owens Valley Live Dustcams storymap to teach about landforms, climate, current weather, and the influence of human activity and natural conditions on air quality.   You could do something similar for a larger region using The High Sierra web map, which features webcams pointing at highways and even ski runs!  Or, to examine ecoregions, vegetation, climate, land use, and landforms of some of the most spectacular areas of the entire USA, use this live web map of The National Parks (shown below). Monitor headlines around the world with this storymap linked to current headlines of newspapers, and consider why certain regions' newspapers have the headlines they do, and which stories are common to multiple locations. One of my favorite maps gives you the ability to monitor current conditions of oceans and ports using the Our Oceans storymap.  Or, use the Volcanoes of the World story map as part of your unit on investigating different types of volcanoes, where they exist, and the threats they pose. The Colorado National Monument from The National Parks story map. One of my all time favorite parks. OK, I'm biased--I spent a lot of time hiking here as a child. What could you do with these and other live web maps linked to webcams? ... View more

Dr Sandra Lach Arlinghaus and I have co-written a book entitled Spatial Mathematics—Theory and Practice Through Mapping, published by CRC Press/Taylor & Francis.  Spatial mathematics draws on the theoretical underpinnings of both mathematics and geography.  Spatial mathematics draws from geometry, topology, graph theory, trigonometry, modern algebra, symbolic logic, set theory, and more.  To build bridges between mathematics and geography, each of the book’s 10 chapters begins with theoretical discussions that form the bridge foundation, and activities that form the span between the two disciplines.  It can be used as a text in geography, GIS, or mathematics courses at the university or community college level, and by researchers interested in these intersections, and by GIS practitioners who seek deeper insight into the mathematics behind their spatial analysis. Spatial Mathematics book. Our table of contents includes 10 chapters: 1.  Geometry of the Sphere 2.  Location, Trigonometry, and Measurement of the Sphere 3.  Transformations: Analysis and Raster/Vector Formats 4.  Replication of Results: Color and Number 5.  Scale 6.  Partitioning of Data: Classification and Analysis 7.  Visualizing Hierarchies 8.  Distribution of Data: Selected Concepts 9.  Map Projections 10.  Integrating Past, Present, and Future Approaches The book also includes a Glossary, References, Further Reading, and Related Materials.Waldo Tobler of the University of California Santa Barbara, wrote, “Two ancient texts had a profound and lasting impact on the literate world—Euclid’s Elements, and the rediscovery in the 1400s of Ptolemy’s Geography from AD 150. […]  Now, in this book, additional insight for the mathematical solution of geographical tasks is provided. The pedagogical orientation is especially worthy of comment.”  Michael Batty, of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London, wrote “Teaching mathematics can be tough but here is a book that is a gentle introduction to the mathematics of the spatial world through the medium of mapping.  The use of QR codes to access additional map-based material is clever and innovative, and provides a nice link to the very technologies that this mathematics supports.” Michael Goodchild, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote that “Mathematics underpins geography in many ways, especially in this new era of computerized mapping and geographic information systems. Geography can also be an exciting and relevant way of teaching many of the basic concepts of mathematics, from geometry and topology to statistics. So this book on spatial mathematics as applied to mapping is both timely and welcome. The wealth of practical examples and the enthusiasm of its authors will fill an important niche in a mapping literature that often underplays the importance and relevance of mathematics.”    Marc Schlossberg of the University of Oregon, wrote, “This book is both all about the map and all about the math behind the map, using what has become ubiquitous on our smart phones and in our vehicles as a vehicle itself to teach complex concepts accessible, meaningful, and useful for students." ... View more

Sean Cavanagh, writing for Education Week, highlights 6 different kinds of technology and tech practices that are likely to become increasingly important in K-12 school systems over the next few years.  In addition, the Horizon Report’s 2013 K-12 Edition, discusses those technologies in more detail, and also describes barriers to the effective use of technology. The report was released by the New Media Consortium, an international organization focused on educational technology, as well as the Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education.  Its findings are based on the opinions and analyses of school and college technology officials, business representatives from companies around the world, and others. The report states that in the near term, mobile technologies have an expanding presence in school, growth driven by “bring-your-own-device” policies, the rise of mobile apps and other tools, and a strong interest from the private sector in developing new technologies.  Cloud computing is already being used by schools today, and more are turning to that option as a way to outsource portions of their technology infrastructure. In the mid-term, learning analytics, or the field focused on making sense of trends and patterns using “big data"--huge amounts of student-related data, is likely to grow. Data analysis is being used to help struggling learners and to help tailor curricula to student needs.  The use of open content was once largely confined to higher education, but now more organizations are developing those free, flexible materials for K-12 schools. That’s partly a response to “an expression of student choice about when and how to learn,” the Horizon report says. In the far-term, 3-D printing has the potential to help schools introduce students to the design process, help schools create materials that demonstrate concepts, and make classrooms more creative places.  Virtual and remote laboratories can allow schools to use wireless networks, cloud-based software, and mobile devices to bring scientific experiences to schools that have only limited labs. The authors also note potential stumbling blocks on the horizon. Today’s technology in schools doesn’t do enough to support personalized learning, for instance. And professional development to implement new technology is often lacking, they say. Collecting spatial data in the field. I see many ways that geotechnology fits into these trends.  Today's GIS allows students to use a variety of devices not only to create and examine web-based maps, but to collect data in the field.  It thus easily incorporates virtual and remote laboratories and the "bring your own device" model.  ArcGIS is a cloud computing platform that supports an ever-expanding array of functions, map layers, and applications.  The ArcGIS platform is beginning to be embedded into open content and learning management system architecture.  When I read the sentences I have just written, and think back to where GIS in education was just a few years ago, I am amazed.  We have more and easier-to-use data sets and tools at our fingertips than ever before.  Could we be at the tipping point where GIS will soon be adopted on an order of magnitude larger than what we have seen up now? Not only does GIS fit well with these trends, but I would argue that for the future of our students, we can't just sit around and hope that GIS spreads throughout education at all levels and in all disciplines.  I feel we must as a community take active steps to ensure that GIS and spatial thinking are embedded into an envisioned future of primary and secondary education.  GIS is well connected to educational content standards, fosters critical thinking, is by its nature created to be an investigative, problem-based set of tools and approaches, and develops skills that are in increasing demand in the workplace.  However, the most important reason we need to promote GIS is, I believe, that we face critical global issues in the 21st Century, all of which are geospatial issues that can be examined through the spatial perspective using GIS.  We simply must equip decision makers with the tools and perspectives necessary for them to be able to make the wisest decisions possible for the benefit of people and the planet. ... View more

A number of years ago, our colleague in geography from the University of Missouri, Professor Kit Salter, created a rubric that encouraged students to truly observe and learn from their observation.  Dr Salter called it "O, SAE, can you see?" Each letter in this phrase is laden with meaning.  The "O" stands for Observation, because all geography and the study of landscape must begin with an articulate expression of what you are looking at, or what landscape problem you are considering.  The "S" stands for Speculation -- about why the landscape being observed looks the way it does.  Dr Salter  promotes speculation as a strand of critical thinking because "you have to look at visual evidence and try to determine what factors--economic, aesthetic, political, technological, and so on, seem dominant in the creation of that scene/seen" (Salter, personal communication). O SAE, can you see? Fountain Formation sandstone, photo by Joseph Kerski. The "A" stands for Analysis.  Part of the "O, SAE" exercise is determining what evidence is not  available simply through O and S.  Interviews might be required.  A list of questions that could be taken to the library or to a local realtor or long-time resident would help learn what is trying to be understood.   A can also stand for Answers, which come from observing, speculating, and grappling with the issues.  However, students need to realize that for many complex issues, there is no single correct answer.  The "E" stands for Evaluation.  Does this particular landscape phenomenon make sense?  Is what is observed environmentally sustainable?  Does the situation serve the community?  How can it be studied more effectively?  Dr Salter commented that this simple rubric worked not only in the field but also with in-class discussion or presentations, as well as with passages from prose or objective description.  He used it with primary school field trips through graduate seminars. I believe that geospatial technologies can be effectively used to bring out the themes of "O SAE can you see".  Students can use geospatial technologies such as GIS, and ArcGIS Online in particular, to map their own field-collected data, to analyze geographic variables from local to global scale, and to build richly illustrated story maps that communicate their research project's results.  Students can share the maps they have created and embed them into slideshows and websites. I believe that "O, SAE can you see?" provides an easy-to-remember and helpful framework for instruction.  But as Dr Salter remarked, perhaps a better one is "O, SAE what can you see?" ... View more

Can you build an Esri Story Map in 15 minutes?  Yes!  The map I created in that amount of time shows my walk from the San Diego Convention Center to the San Diego airport.  I was in that wonderful city for the Esri Education GIS Conference and the Esri International User Conference.  Walk?  Yes, the San Diego airport is one of the few airports that you can actually walk to, and doable in just under an hour (I must admit I got a bit sweaty while wearing my map tie and dragging my luggage).  I wanted to use that walking time to reflect upon all that I had learned at the conferences, enjoy the harbor views one last time before departing, and use it as a test case for creating a Story Map. Walking to the San Diego Airport: Story Map. First, I turned on my smartphone and fired up RunKeeper, a fitness app.  I took a few photos of the convention center and harbor along the way with that same phone.  I emailed those photos to my Google Plus/Picasaweb account's public dropbox.  Once at the airport gate, I saved my route as a GPX file, uploaded it to ArcGIS Online, and published my map as a Story Map web application.  I pointed to the location of my photographs, added some captions, and I was done. Since returning to the office, I have resisted the temptation to edit my map to make it look just a little bit nicer, because that would defeat my purpose.  My purpose was to illustrate that (1) Esri Story Maps can be created to tell just about any conceivable type of story, and that (2) they can be quickly generated, even at a crowded airport gate!  What story of your own can you make a map of using these techniques? ... View more

I recently created a set of activities based on using web-based GIS tools to teach spatial thinking using drive-time buffers, a set of activities that use viewsheds as a teaching tool, another on the use of zonal statistics, another on analyzing the best route to a facility, and another on routing around barriers.  They are all free, easy to use, powerful, based on Esri technology, and they foster spatial thinking. Analyzing supermarket access in ArcGIS Online. Now let's open this map that incorporates point, line, and polygon data and some of the spatial analysis techniques that you have been exploring using the above blog lessons and web maps.  This map shows access to supermarkets.  The supermarkets have been buffered for walking (1 mile) and driving (10 minutes).  People in poverty with low access and farmers markets are also shown.  Notice how the symbology changes as you zoom out of Detroit to the county level.  Find, zoom to, and study your own community and compare it to Detroit.  What is the purpose of this map that you have been examining?  Why is access to supermarkets a concern to society?  What are the patterns of access in your own community, or the neighborhoods across town? Turn on the map layer indicating food expenditures at home versus away from home. Examine the details for this map layer so you will understand what it means. How have the spatial analysis techniques you have been exploring using the maps above been used to create this map?  What about the map's symbology do you find interesting, useful, or even confusing?  Why?  How could you use this map as a teaching and learning tool? ... View more

I recently created a set of activities based on using web-based GIS tools to teach spatial thinking using drive-time buffers, a set of activities that use viewsheds as a teaching tool, another on the use of zonal statistics, and another on analyzing the best route to a facility.  Each of these shares common elements:  They are all based on Esri GIS technology.  They are all free, easy to use, powerful, and they foster spatial thinking.  Let's use another GIS tool to investigate routing around barriers.  Barriers may be physical, such as ridges or rivers, or they may be a human construct or consequence, such as one-way streets, road repair, or an accident. Routing around barriers Examine the routing around barriers mapping application.  Let's say you are running a bicycle courier service in downtown San Diego.  Your pick up point is at 1 st Avenue and Market Street.  Your destination is at 10 th Avenue and Market Street.  Add these 2 stops and have the map calculate your route, shown in blue.  But now say there is construction at 7 th Avenue and Market.  Use Add Barriers and add a barrier at 7 th Avenue and Market (3 blocks due west of 10 th and Market). What changed on your map after you added a barrier, and why?  Experiment with additional barriers in different locations around downtown San Diego.  Zoom out and repeat the operation with a slightly different scenario at this new scale:  Now you're in a truck filled with trees that you must deliver around metropolitan San Diego.  How can you most efficiently deliver your trees to 4 urban gardens around the city?  Add barriers and observe how they change your route's pattern.  How much additional time do you estimate would be required to make your deliveries with these new barriers? How might you be able to use this tool in your instruction to foster spatial thinking? ... View more

I recently created a set of activities based on using web-based GIS tools to teaching spatial thinking using drive-time buffers, another set of activities that use viewsheds, and another on the use of zonal statistics.    Typical modern GIS tasks also include determining the best route and the closest facilities to specific locations.  This is important for a wide range of applications, from emergency services bringing people in an ambulance to the nearest hospital to the nearest competitor to your planned new bicycle rental facility. Finding the Route and the Closest Facility to a chosen point. Open this web map and click somewhere on the map in northeastern San Francisco that represents a location where let's say you are currently located.  What is the closest facility to your chosen point?  Change the choice under the map to find the routes for the 1 closest facility to a point to 2 closest facilities. Two routes are shown in this image; I selected one of them, highlighted in cyan, and the directions are given for this route. This tool is easy to run with the above link and yet can lead to so many wonderful discussions about the Can you think of real-world situations where a route to two or more closest facilities would be needed from a given point, besides the emergency and bicycle examples I gave above?  Name them and discuss why this type of analysis is so critical to our 21st Century world. ... View more

I recently created a set of activities based on using web-based GIS tools to teaching spatial thinking using drive-time buffers, and another set of activities that use viewsheds.   Another type of spatial analysis computes and summarizes data from points, lines, or polygons, and is called “zonal statistics.”  To easily use an application of zonal statistics, use this map to summarize population in specific areas. Calculating the population of the Atlanta area with zonal statistics tool. After accessing the map, click "Summarize Population" in the  lower left section of the map and then draw a polygon that encompasses Atlanta, Georgia. What is the population of the Atlanta area?  Why is your result likely to be different each time you draw the polygon?  How does the population of an area of similar size in rural Georgia compare to the population of Atlanta?  How does the population of an area of similar size in rural Wyoming compare to rural Georgia?  Compare your counts to areas of similar sizes in the Ganges River basin in India, or to an area in the Sahara Desert.  Why is the base data that is being used for the population counts critical to the specific results you receive from these calculations?  Test the results over the ocean:  Do the counts total zero? How might you be able to use this tool in teaching and learning about issues of map projections, data quality, zonal statistics, and other spatial concepts? ... View more

I recently posted a set of activities based on using web-based GIS tools to teaching spatial thinking using drive-time buffers.  Viewsheds are another type of buffer.  Viewsheds indicate how much terrain is visible from specified locations.  Viewsheds are important not only in planning scenic overlooks along trails and highways, but help in everyday decisions such as siting optimal locations for cell phone towers, determining how much terrain would be in shadow if a certain high-rise were to be constructed, helping plan safe roadway curves, and much more.  Open this map to create your own viewsheds. Teaching spatial concepts with viewsheds. This map service shades the terrain viewable within 5 miles of your chosen point.  Say you are interested in taking photographs in San Francisco but you only have 2 hours to do so, during your airplane’s layover at SFO.  You want to be as efficient as possible, choosing locations that allow you a magnificent view.  Click in several locations on the map and observe the viewshed after each location. Your viewshed should be greater if you click on one of San Francisco’s many hills.  For example, I created the viewshed shown here using the above link. Judging from the shape of the viewshed, at this point would you be standing on a south-facing hillside or a north-facing hillside?  Next, click on the Golden Gate Bridge (leading northward from San Francisco on US 101).   Why is the 5 mile viewshed so much greater in area at this location? What is the viewshed from Fisherman's Wharf? From Telegraph Hill?  From the Financial District in the streets amongst the tall buildings? How might you be able to use these viewshed tools in your teaching? ... View more

Teaching spatial concepts and analysis can be effectively done with web-based GIS tools.  One type of spatial analysis involves the use of buffers--areas that show proximity to mapped features.  One kind of buffer is a “drive time” or “service area” buffer, which can be used to calculate and display the amount of time required to walk, bicycle, or drive to or from a certain location.  This developer map is also useful for teaching  to create some buffers, in this case, drive time. 1-2-3 minute drive time buffers Click on a location in the city of Lawrence, Kansas and wait a moment for the drive time buffer to appear.  Ask the students:  Why aren't these buffers a perfect circle?  Click on Interstate Highway 70 and note the differences between the buffer along this limited access highway versus a buffer along city streets.  Click on a point just north of the river and note the effect of the river that blocks quick access to areas south of it. These drive time buffers depend not only on the street location and density, but they have intelligence beyond street location:  They take into account one-way streets, stop signs and stop lights, traffic volume, speed limit, physical barriers, and terrain.  Pan the map to a rural area outside Lawrence and click on the map in that location.  What is the difference in the amount of terrain someone could reach in 1, 2, and 3 minutes from a rural area versus that from an urban area?  Why do these differences exist? Pan to the location where you live and calculate drive time buffers in different locations in your own community. For an application of this concept in analyzing access to a specific type of business, access this map showing pizza restaurants that are within a 3 minute drive of the location you select.  Click on various locations and note the differences in the buffer and the resulting selected restaurants.  This service uses a Yahoo! Local Search to calculate its drive time, but also note that terrain is still important.  In other words, yes, physical geography still matters! Both of these live maps and the services they provide are easy to use, fascinating, and can foster much good discussion about the practical application of spatial thinking and analysis. ... View more

At the last Esri International User Conference, my Esri education colleague Laura Bowden and I conducted a spatial thinking workshop.  Laura said something in the workshop that I have been musing about ever since: "Be spatially critical." This phrase is laden with meaning and examining it in this blog may shed light on why this community believes so firmly in the value of research and practice in GIS in education. Be Spatially Critical ! Effectively using GIS in teaching and learning hinges upon critical thinking and spatial thinking.  For example, some critical thinking questions relate to the context of a problem:  What background research do I need to examine and what content do I need to immerse myself in to be knowledgeable about the issue?  What are the costs and benefits of the issue I am analyzing?  Who are the stakeholders affected by the issue?  What are the historical, current, and future implications surrounding the issue? At the 1987 conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Scriven and Paul stated that critical thinking means to "conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize and/or evaluate information gathered from, or generalized by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to belief or action [or argument]."  GIS can be used to foster such actions, and in practice, this is where critical and spatial thinking meet: What data do I need to gather and analyze to assess the issue completely and accurately?  How can I represent that issue within a GIS environment using raster and vector data sets, multimedia, graphs and charts, and by other means and tools?  Can I trust my data sources?  At what scale do I need to examine my chosen issue?  What data will support that scale of analysis?  What symbology, classification, and presentation techniques should I choose to effectively communicate my results? Other questions are specific to an instructional environment:  As an instructor, how can I best teach to encourage students to be spatially critical?  As a student, what content knowledge, skills, and geographic perspectives do I need to cultivate in order to develop my ability to become spatially critical? In sum, the phrase "Be Spatially Critical" includes elements of critical thinking and spatial thinking, both of which my colleagues and I frequently write about in this blog.  Laura Bowden and I plan to conduct a spatial thinking workshop at the 2013 Esri User Conference as well, and we look forward to reading your comments here and interacting with you during the workshop! ... View more

The phrase "spatial thinking" has been receiving increasing attention over the past 15 years, encouraged in part from the National Research Council's report Learning to Think Spatially:  GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum.   However, in many ways, we in the GIS education community have been immersed in promoting and supporting spatial thinking in education for far longer than that; indeed, for over 20 years.  Beginning in the early 1990s, a handful of innovative K-12 teachers, along with a few interested faculty in universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies working closely with K-12 educators, as well as the Esri Education Team (which began in 1992), to bring spatial thinking through the use of GIS tools to primary and secondary schools.  At the same time, the Esri Higher Education program began.  At the university level, spatial thinking has long been nurtured by research and practice from the fields of geography, science education, cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction, and others. Spatial Thinking: Perspective, Skills, and Content. What exactly is spatial thinking?  There have been many attempts to define it.   My interest in it lies mostly on the geographic side, so, perhaps my definition is better labeled as "geospatial thinking."  This overlaps some with "geoliteracy", which has also been receiving increasing attention.  My working definition of spatial thinking is "Identifying, analyzing, and understanding the location, scale, patterns, and trends of the geographic and temporal relationships among data, phenomena, and issues." More important to me than the definition, though is that the diverse communities of scholars and practitioners who care about this topic work together to ensure that spatial thinking is supported, taught, and put to use in education and in society.  What is our goal in terms of spatial thinking?  I like how the NRC report puts it:  It is to cultivate the spatial thinking "habit of mind."  This habit of mind is the geographic perspective on how the world works, including how systems function, how and why certain relationships exist, and also how we might approach and solve problems.  How can we cultivate spatial thinking?  That, friends, is the subject of many of the essays that appear in this blog, from pedagogical strategies to specific skills and technologies used.  What could be our measure of success?  If we can identify key points in the educational curriculum where spatial thinking can enhance what and how we are teaching, and in those points, to put spatial thinking skills into practice, then I think we have succeeded. What is your definition of spatial thinking?   When, where, and how do you think spatial thinking should be put into practice? ... View more