Latest Contributions by CharlieFitzpatrick

It's in a different zone, but needs a "Favorite" link here. See https://community.esri.com/thread/174557-questions-to-ask-before-agreeing-to-do-a-training  ... View more

[[COVID Update June 2020: The Education Summit will be online only, Aug 5,6,7. See FWG271 and FWG273.]] The "best event in town" for a GIS-using K12 teacher just got better for those at a school with an ArcGIS School Bundle. K12 teachers attached to the Bundle can attend all four days of the Esri Education Summit for $100. The Education Summit features two days, Saturday plus Sunday, just with educators, in plenary sessions, user presentations, and hands-on workshops, plus hours of the best networking around, with hundreds of GIS-using educators swapping tips and strategies. Then we join the launch of the main Esri Users Conference, in the vast auditorium with nearly 20,000 GIS users, for the Monday plenaries followed by the afternoon reception up in the Map Gallery in a forest of amazing maps! And finally Tuesday, in the enormous Expo, with Esri staff from technical, training, and industry teams, plus hundreds of companies, agencies, non-profits, and partner organizations. If you can extract yourself from the Expo, you can immerse in any of hundreds of technical sessions and user presentations. The screenshot above from the registration page appears about 6 screens into the actual registration process. When registering, be prepared to provide your Esri Customer Number, ArcGIS Online Org "shortname" (the part of the URL before ".maps.arcgis.com"), and "login with Esri access," along with your standard information. For $100, K12 teachers can be part of the world's largest GIS event, with education everywhere you turn! Be there! See esri.com/educ! ... View more

Updated June 22, 2020 2020 Online User Conference ("UC"): Mon July 13 - Wed July 15, 2020, online 2020 Online Education Summit ("EdUC"): Thu Aug 6 and Fri Aug 7, 2020, online Both events are available to EVERYONE for free with registration. (Plenary only to non-customers.) Educators and students need to look closely at the information there, and know your institution's Customer Number and your personal Esri-access-enabled ArcGIS login. The Education Summit will feature parallel tracks for K-12 instruction and for Higher Ed. ... View more

Every third Thursday, every month except June and July, the T3G leaders host a webinar for educators interested in GIS. T3G is focused especially on K12 educators, but as of January 2020, our webinars are open to all educators, regardless of age/subject focus or whether you participated in a T3G institute (2009-2019). Emphasis is on teaching with GIS in a particular discipline, or teaching with a particular tool. Examples might include: Teaching <subject or age group> with GIS Teaching with GeoInquiries Tips and tricks for teaching with ArcGIS Online Tips and tricks for managing a school's ArcGIS Online Organization Field data collection with mobile apps General update on Esri software (especially in August after User Conference) Awesome new <data or instruction> resources We use the Zoom platform, so participants may join via computer, tablet, or smartphone. Access either via web browser or via Zoom app. Engage the Zoom app if installed or, in a browser, go to http://zoom.us Click "Join meeting" Enter room number 599779203 Identify yourself with full name Webinars are on the third Thursday of the month, 5:00-6:00pmPT. We record when possible, but sometimes only record the main presentation and not the Q&A time, so try to show up for the full event. See the T3G Calendar for more info. See the T3G Public Webinars archive to browse recordings. August 20, 2020 = Summer recap: Esri UC and the 2020-2021 Year June and July of 2020 = breaktime May 21, 2020: CTE = Career Tech Ed => See the video April 16, 2020: Field Data Collection with Survey123 Offline => See the video March 19, 2020: Teaching History with GIS Panel => See the video February 20, 2020: Teaching Geography with GIS Panel => See the video January 16, 2020: GIS in Science Education Panel  => See the video ... View more

During the decade of T3G institutes, we developed a set of graphics that help people think about GIS instruction more powerfully. The graphics are available for the public to use, and are visible in English and (thanks to Esri Colombia) Spanish. The posters are 24x36-inch PDFs and the sheets are 8.5x11-inch single page PDFs with explanatory documentation. See the full set. See the "most useful" item, "Instructional Use of GIS" one-pager. ... View more

Panelists: Eric Cromwell, Elementary Science Coordinator, Baltimore (MD) County Public Schools Erika Klose, Asst Director, CompSci/STEM/GIS, West Virginia Dept of Education Dominique Evans-Bye, Science Teacher, Clark Magnet HS, Glendale CA Mike Jabot, Prof of Science Education, SUNY-Fredonia (NY) LINK to the 33-min recording, 1280x720, .mp4 (click the LINK or the image below) Next up: Thu 20 Feb 2020: GIS in Geography Education Panel. ... View more

The competition is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The competition officially launches (and registration opens) on January 6, 2020. A $5,000 prize will be awarded to the top digital AND the top printed map! Detailed information about the Challenge can be found at geothermalchallenge.com.   High school and university teams from across the nation are invited to create a compelling infographic/poster or interactive map while considering the following questions: Geothermal energy is difficult to understand because it is located underground. How can geospatial mapping increase our understanding of this important renewable energy resource? How can GIS improve how we visualize and communicate about geothermal energy?   This is the third time INL has the privilege to lead the Geothermal Design Challenge. ... View more

"WHOA! COOL!" is by far the most common phrase uttered when people do one simple step with a simple webapp I created for demos. Adults or students; I've tested as young as age 8. See this "comparison" app, which starts in Hawaii. When the app opens, look in the top left corner of the left map and click the "-" button 3 or 4 times: Open this example app: http://arcg.is/hawaiicompare. Comparison is a time-tested powertool for learning. Seeing two different presentations of the same location at one time is huge for proving that there is always more than one way to think about any given scenario, and nothing demonstrates at once more powerfully and simply this fundamental capacity of GIS. The left map is a 2D view (Web Mercator projection, standard these days, for better or worse), and the right is a "3D" scene (on a flat screen, starting in "overhead" view). The displays are synchronized, to the degree possible; both can pan, zoom, and rotate, but the right map (being a scene) can also "tilt." Both can swap the basemap with one in the lower right corner, expanding comparisons. This duo uses only basemaps and default tools. It took about ten minutes to set the basics, and another ten to test/tweak/save/repeat. The template can mix or match content types and locations, but coupling a 2D map and a 3D scene generated the desired impact. Make a basic map focused on the area of interest, and save it. Make a basic scene focused on the area of interest, and save it. Open the map, choose to share, choose to make a web app from a configurable template, choose the "Compare" template, and save the web app. Configure (this is the time-consuming part), save, and test the web app. Share the map, scene, and web app (all three items) alike. The example above was done using a public account, with no special data or tools. Notice that, using the 2D measure tool, you can see that flying the shortest distance from the northernmost tip of Alaska to the southernmost tip of Africa would involve flying almost due north over the North Pole; you can, of course, confirm it using the line tool in the 3D display. For another situation, I did a similar 2D/3D comparison app using my Organization login, and focused on a single local watershed, showing a downstream trace from a special location and the upstream watershed, so users could tip and rotate and grasp the environment. Careful planning of layers in the map and scene can yield huge impact. Embedding the app in a StoryMap lets the creator provide a little context or instruction (for use in or away from class), and lets the user launch out into full screen. Many effective activities and lessons are possible with "simple tools." These technologies are not simple under the hood, but their concepts are easy to explain (map, scene, basemap, pan, zoom, rotate, tilt, measure, etc), which lets the user focus on powerful content and instruction. It is much more impressive seeing educators do powerful things with simple tools than simple things with powerful tools. The ArcGIS School Bundle has a great array of tools, all available free to schools and clubs for instruction, around the world. Good teachers master the basics, including the power of simplicity. ... View more

In 2006, Esri UC featured a six-pack of 4-H youth on stage. The “emcee” of the team was 16-year-old (that day!) Emmaline Long, from Bergen NY. What has happened with her since her time with “plows, sows, and cows”? I caught up with her for an hour-long interview on a quiet Sunday morning this fall. I wanted to see what path her life had taken, and what role if any GIS was playing in her life. After two more years of high school, Long went to Cornell University, on a scholarship that came in part because of a project she had done mapping endangered orchids in a swamp, which had elevated her to a finalist in the Intel Talent Search. Her undergrad work didn't involve a lot of GIS, but she was interested in precision ag, and she turned that into her Master's thesis. "I studied agronomy and geospatial sciences. My thesis was evaluating precision agriculture technology on self-propelled forage harvesters, checking to see if they are accurate in the attributes gathered, particularly moisture, measured by near-infrared reflectance. We aggregated data into truckloads (10-20 tons each), and found that they are accurate within the parameters of what the company says, if the farm calibrates. But after my Master's degree I didn't know what I wanted to do, because I like it all -- vegetables, field crops and grains, dairy farms. I found a farm near my home which grows everything and needed someone with my background. CY Farms LLC is a third generation family farm with 6000 acres of vegetables, grains, and forages, across 300 fields (of 4-170 acres). I can scout diseases of onions in the morning and be at the dairy looking at forage quality in the afternoon. I told them I'd give them one full year to try, and am now just finishing my sixth growing season." Most of the farm work involves data collection. "We have auto-steer machines, which create an ‘A-B’ line in tilling. Then we use that exact line to guide across the field for fertilizing, which lets us do variable rate fertilizing, according to prescriptions written in our spatial software, based on grid soil sampling data or soil types. Then comes planting, in our 24-row planter with sectional auto-shutoff, and we collect data every second, including how many seeds, the variety, the downforce, singulation." All this data is sent to a cloud-based database for storage and analysis. Long and colleagues gather data on about two thirds of the acres every year, and then get the yield maps to overlay and look for patterns and relationships. "Ag in general is good at collecting the data, but not quite as good at making decisions on the basis of that data. Companies make satellite data available, even a couple of times per week, but I have 300 fields spread across the landscape, in all different shapes and sizes, and a lot of things to do. Still, we can go back afterwards to study the data and see if we might have spotted something earlier that shows up later in the harvest, which can then influence the scouting I do in the fields during the next year." So, when you were in school, and got started with 4-H, and they introduced you to GIS, did you gravitate to it? "Ohmigosh yes! I'm a data mapping, visual spatial person. I can't remember numbers, but can picture the whole field and tell you about the spatial aspects; that's just the way my brain works. Give me an atlas to look at. And I still go geocaching. I can't be sure, but I think if I hadn't been in 4-H and hadn't been introduced, I would hope I would have found it some other way. I was just immediately drawn to it." And are you still learning? "We all have to. Every year, the job and responsibilities have evolved, with changes in crops, our technology, and the people we have access to. I love to learn; my employers value learning, and the industry offers a lot of opportunities for it, and people see it as essential. It's especially prominent in the winter. Last week, I went to two different variety trials; all winter long, starting in December, I'm not in the office 5 days because of meetings and conferences and workshops." In 2006, six young people captivated the audience with their interest in geospatial tools, showing they recognized a wide-open door. In the intervening years, the career opportunities presented by GIS have multiplied, fed by each new technological advance, and by understanding that it helps people solve problems and design solutions. Any K12 school or formal youth-serving club can request ArcGIS software for instruction for free. ... View more

Two Esri wizards have created independent but wonderfully synchronized blogs on data capture and display. Ismael Chivite writes about QuickCapture, the newest item in the ArcGIS data capture tool belt. Bernie Szukalski writes about Attachment Viewer, a great way to facilitate viewing content from either QuickCapture, Survey123, or Collector. See them both, and think about how you can help students DO community studies in science and social studies, especially in relation to the ArcGIS Online Competition for US HS+MS Students. QuickCapture Attachment Viewer ... View more