Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

A book I co-edited with Dr. Andy Milson and Dr. Ali Demirci has just been published by Springer, entitled International Perspectives on Teaching and Learning with GIS in Secondary Schools. This is the first publication to collate a broad international perspective on the pedagogical value of GIS technology in classrooms, and offers an unprecedented range of expert views on the subject. For more information and to read sections of the book online, see the publisher's site. The authors created a series of five videos describing the book. This book brings together authors from 33 countries who profile the current status of GIS in secondary school teaching and learning in their country. We have been honored to have worked with each of our authors and to hear their inspiring stories. Each chapter includes a summary of the country’s educational context, a case study illustrating how GIS is used in secondary schooling, and an assessment of the opportunities and challenges in teaching and learning with GIS now and in the future. We are honored that Roger Tomlinson wrote the Foreword. The editors wrote a synthesis chapter where we reflect on the progress made in teaching and learning with GIS over the past 20 years, the key trends for the remainder of this decade, and make heartfelt recommendations as to what needs to happen to meet the goal of engaging all students in thinking spatially. The book demonstrates that GIS is not only a technological tool to be used in the classroom, but also a catalyst for motivation, encouragement, and cooperation in understanding and solving global problems. Geographic Information Systems (GISs) have revolutionized the way people explore and understand the world around them. The capability they confer allows us to capture, manage, analyze, and display geographic data in ways that were undreamt of a generation ago. GIS has enabled users to make decisions and solve problems as diverse as designing bus routes, locating new businesses, responding to emergencies, and researching climate change. GIS is also having a major impact in the classroom. Students and teachers around the world are using this significant emerging technology in the secondary school classroom to study social and scientific concepts and processes, to broaden their technical skills, and to engage in problem solving and decision making about local and global issues. We look forward to assembling a panel of the book’s authors at upcoming conferences, including that of the Association of American Geographers and the Esri Education Conference. How might you use this book to make a case to your colleagues and administrators about the value of GIS in education? - Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager ... View more

In a thought-provoking article, Kim Kastens states that “learning to learn from data” is a necessary part of everyone’s education, but not a typical part of everyone’s education. Making it a typical part is a significant challenge. Kastens describes the difference between learning to look up information on a graph and seeing and interpreting patterns in data. How can we help students see patterns and trends that data represent? One way to see patterns in data is through the use of Geographic Information Systems. GIS was created to be a tool with which to investigate data. Isn’t it easier to see the relationship of birth rate to life expectancy, or tsunami damage based on proximity to coasts, with a map rather than only a data table? GIS gives the instructor and student the ability to see the relationship between the map and the underlying database. Instructors using GIS focus on problem-solving, inquiry-driven pedagogical techniques that use real-world data to analyze spatial patterns on scales from local to global. They focus on classroom, community, and careers, promoting scholarship, citizenship, and artisanship. Dr Kastens’ article discusses the use of student-collected data. Students can collect their own data on tree height and species, pH in streams, or other phenomena using probes, GPS, or smartphones. They can input that data into a GIS for analysis as easy as dragging-and-dropping their files into ArcGIS Online. GIS allows for graphing, summarizing, and answering questions such as “What is the average soil moisture on the south-facing versus the north-facing slopes?” “What is the average height of pine versus spruce trees?” “How many earthquakes occurred in 2011 within 100 km of subducting plate boundaries?” Kastens invites students to dig into data and think critically about where it comes from. GIS is nothing without data. Students using GIS develop critical thinking skills about data – its imperfections, its limitations, its gaps, and its use, rather than just “accepting it because it is on the Internet!” or thinking “because it is on a map, it is perfect.” Nowadays, it is easier than ever to use GIS in the classroom. One excellent place to start is http://www.arcgis.com to create and analyze maps of recent earthquakes or landslides around the world, soils or biomes in a region, or food expenditures in a metropolitan area. These maps can be saved, shared, and built upon. How could you use GIS to learn with, from, and about data? - Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager ... View more

In my last blog, I discussed a new lesson and data set, entitled “Population Drift: Mean Center Analysis 1790-2010” in the ArcLessons library, which uses spatial analysis, spatial statistics, and GIS to determine and analyze the population centers of the USA and individual states over space and time, from 1790 to 2010. One of the most fascinating parts of this lesson is examining the movement of state population centers. This map shows the movement of mean center for each of the 48 states from 1900 to 2010, with the 1900 center shown as a blue square and the 2010 center shown as a red square. Nevada’s mean center of population moved the farthest, making a beeline north to south from the mining areas near Virginia City in 1900 toward fast-growing Las Vegas. Similarly, the influx of residents to southern California and the decline of mining tugged California’s mean center toward Los Angeles, though the San Francisco Bay cities kept the center from moving as much as in Nevada. Colorado’s mean center moved from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains, inexorably toward Denver. In Kansas, the center moved west until 1920 as the high western plains were settled, but then reversed as a result of high plains population loss beginning with the Dust Bowl and continuing to the present day. Why did Virginia’s center move north? Why did some state centers move very little? In which state is the population center the furthest from its geographic center? How might you use this lesson and data set to teach about the many economic, political, demographic, and perceptual forces that pull on the population center of each state? Where will these centers move in the future? How might you use these same techniques to analyze how the population center of a metropolitan area or a county moved over time? How might you use GIS to determine where the mean center of ethnic groups in your community or people of specific age ranges are located? Why are these centers not necessarily in the same location as the mean center for the whole population? - Joseph Kerski, Education Manager ... View more

Analyzing the Mean Center of Population for the USA and for Individual States, Updated for ArcGIS 10 and Census Year 2010 A new lesson, entitled “Population Drift: Mean Center Analysis 1790-2010” in the ArcLessons library (search on Population Drift), invites students to use spatial analysis, spatial statistics, and GIS to determine and analyze the population centers of the USA and individual states over space and time, from 1790 to 2010. This lesson was recently updated to include 110 in-depth questions, a very rich set of data including the new 2010 county population figures, and to use the powerful spatial statistics tools in ArcGIS 10. The objectives of this lesson are to 1) Understand the definition of and application of mean center and weighted mean center; 2) Understand the definition and use of a population weighted mean center in a GIS environment; 3) Learn how to calculate mean population centers for the USA and for individual states using GIS tools; 4) Understand the magnitude and direction of movement and key reasons why the US population center moved from 1790 to 2010; and 5) Analyze how and key reasons why population centers for individual states moved from 1900 to 2010. Skills include calculating mean centers, selecting and using spatial and attribute data, and symbolizing and querying maps. The investigation of population change and population centers naturally lends itself to discussions of job creation and loss, economic conditions, perceptions of place, the evolution of agribusiness and rural outmigration, urbanization, suburban sprawl, sunbelt migration, changes in the median age, changes from industry to services, international migration to the USA, and a whole host of other issues. Examining the population center for individual states allows students to consider how these issues operate on a state scale. The Census Bureau recently published information on the location of the new 2010 USA center of population, as well as a series of interactive maps showing the 1790-2010 movement, on: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/center-of-population.php. Linked to the page is a series of videos from Census Bureau Director Robert Groves who discusses the movement of the population center. These interactive maps and videos provide excellent supplementary materials to the ArcGIS-based lesson. How might you use this lesson to teach about the many economic, political, demographic, and perceptual forces operating over the decades? -Joseph Kerski, Education Manager ... View more

Recently, I wrote about my comparison of the horizontal position obtained from a consumer-grade GPS receiver versus that obtained on a SmartPhone. Specifically, I compared a Garmin GPS 76 to an iPhone 4. The position recorded on my iPhone was consistently tens-of-meters off from the position recorded with my GPS receiver. Thus far, it appeared that my position as recorded by my GPS receiver is far more accurate than that from my iPhone. However, this was not the end of the story. In the field, I switched to the map view on my phone, and the blue dot marking my current position was not hundreds of meters away, but just a few meters from where I was standing. I took a photograph here and emailed it to my PicasaWeb account using the procedures I wrote about in a previous blog column. This photograph was geotagged at 39.680000 north latitude, 104.962667 west longitude, which turned out to be only 6.21 meters away (this time to the southwest) from my position as recorded by the GPS receiver. Interesting! This means that the SmartPhone was indeed recording an accurate position, but perhaps the app used to capture that position may have compromised that position. The map I created from ArcGIS Explorer Online below shows my hyperlinked photograph very near to the position where I conducted the experiment, and several blocks to the northwest is the position recorded by the default compass utility in my phone. Zooming in, Pushpin A at the end of the green line points to where I stood at the brick wall on campus. Pushpin B, 5.23 meters north-northwest, is the position recorded with my GPS receiver, and Pushpin C, 6.21 meters to the west-southwest, is the geotagged position recorded in the photograph I took at that spot. Your results will vary with the tools, including the types of WebGIS, GPS, and SmartPhone used. For example, a higher-end GPS such as a Trimble or TopCon will surely provide better horizontal accuracy. Also, would my iPhone position have been any better if I had used a GPS app instead of the default compass tool in my phone? All of these technologies will continue to undergo rapid change, providing ample opportunity for further experiments. These types of experiments connect mathematics, GIScience (including discussion on datums, coordinate systems, and data quality), and geography. How might you turn these activities into teachable moments and activities? - Joseph Kerski, Education Manager ... View more