Latest Contributions by CharlieFitzpatrick

The life of an educator is hard, and it is understandable why some might adopt complex technologies slowly. And yet, day after day, I hear from teachers wanting to use GIS, especially if it helps them do their job more powerfully, more swiftly, perhaps even joyfully, with minimal additional effort. Some want only a little boost, some want eventually to do significant work, and some want to tackle major work immediately. Esri hosts a teacher professional development group called Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS (or "T3G"). T3G holds a monthly webinar. For January 2024, we covered "Teaching Social Studies with ArcGIS Online," focusing on getting started, encouraging those "expecting to jump off the boat first" instead to pause and build critical background, using pre-existing content. Good choices and a ramped and scaffolded approach await, with plateaus where people can pause, explore, practice, and evaluate. The webinar video is publicly available online, as is a starting resource doc (Getting Started with GIS for Educators). Teachers of social studies have banks of pre-existing content with which to begin, no login required. National Geographic MapMaker is an easy way to start using interactive maps, for teachers and students alike. GeoInquiries are pre-built activities plus maps, covering standard academic content, with quick lessons that teachers can use as is or modify. The subsequent pathway leads to signing in and opens more doors to analysis, projects, and beyond. But the hardest steps in building up to run a mile are the first intentional step out the door, and then the first steps forward. The links above can help educators you know. National Geographic MapMaker ... View more

It’s 2024, and the year of a US presidential election. This will be the 17th such election in my memory, starting with 1960. I remember close elections before, but none for which pundits rationally explained how easily the US House, US Senate, and US President could all be controlled by one party, all by another party, or some mix. How is this so? Perhaps a map can help. Here is a map of the "current state of affairs." (The detailed US 118th Congressional Districts layer may not yet include some recent developments; as of this writing, two special elections are pending.) You can explore data in multiple ways, and this map includes various representations of political power. One map layer includes charts attached to it, so selection in the chart shows in the map. Looking at the different layers, you can see numbers in different ways. Of course, individual numbers are not the whole story in politics; various other factors (personality, longevity of service, span of current term, assignments, local context, and so on) matter tremendously, and the mix matters hugely (see blog). But one can see "narrow margin" in multiple ways here. So what? In 1858, Abraham Lincoln (borrowing a biblical idea) noted that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." This year's election features fervent supporters across a political spectrum; this may not be a perfect bell curve. Looking at the map layers and charts may help teachers show how data can be represented in different ways, and help students understand why politics seem particularly fractious and why presenters interested in swaying opinions might use some displays rather than others. Candidates, constituents, supporters, voters, citizens, and residents are not identical sets within vox populi. Teachers, and especially teachers of social studies, have a tremendous opportunity -- I would say duty -- to help students this year cope with torrents of inputs, consider carefully, and make rational decisions. As John McHale noted (see blog), "the future of the future is in the present."   ... View more

The new year inspires us to take stock, course correct, and/or recommit. These are useful steps anytime, but the new year draws attention to the opportunity. Talking with friends old and new, I often remark "This situation has many layers, just like a GIS, which helps me be more realistic. I may want to focus on a single element or layer, but thinking about layers makes me consider the other patterns and relationships in the mix." GIS helps me see, grasp, and communicate the importance of trajectory, balance, and choice. For good health, we need food, exercise, and rest. Our diet needs a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Our lives integrate decisions based on an array of factors, spanning multiple realms and scales. Whether looking at global or local issues, we may be tempted by the simplicity of a single element, but we are likely to be disappointed that way. We need to consider all the relevant layers, choose their weight, explore alternatives that set a positive trajectory, and step forward. We all have much on which to work ... climate, biodiversity, population, food, energy, water, safety, community, economy, education, and more. We need to consider all the layers, trajectories, and choices ... and engage. ... View more

The new year approaches, and you’re surely ready for a rest. But if you have a little time, consider these tasks you can do to make your K12 school or district ArcGIS Online Organization better. The Org is the heart of your license, and all tasks relate to it, so it needs some TLC to run well. [1.] Update the Org’s named leaders (we see these often badly out of date) [1.1] Primary Maintenance Contact = person(s) whom Esri Customer Service has on file as the key contact for the entire license = THE named main person(s) at https://my.esri.com (=”MyEsri”). There can be more than one person named. If there are issues, contact Esri Customer Service (888-377-4575, option 5). [1.2] ArcGIS Online Org “Administrative Contacts” aka “Primary Admins” = person(s) who are key points of contact for automated email notifications about Org operations. There should be at least two, who are still actively involved in Org management, designated in the Org Settings. See https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, p.18, and https://esriurl.com/funwithgis329. If there are issues here, like “We have no admins at all!”, contact schools@esri.com and describe the issue/s. [1.3] ArcGIS Online Org admins who are not “Primary Admins” = persons with full admin power but not designated as the full “Administrative Contacts”. Think of these as “equal to Primary admins but with less responsibility”. Again, see https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, p.18, and https://esriurl.com/funwithgis329.   [2] Boost your Org’s security (a stitch in time saves way more than 9 here!) [2.1] Security Policies are set by the admin in “Organization > Settings > Security.” Recommendations include 2.2-2.6 below but also #3: [2.2] Turn off the first three options in Access: Allow Anonymous access, Allow members of other Orgs to sign in with their Org credentials, and Members can edit their profile and who can see it. [2.3] Turn off at least the first and last in Sharing and Search: Members who are not admins can make things public, and Show social media links on items and groups. [2.4] Think consciously about your sign-in policies and best practices. [2.5] Logins are best set via single sign-on (SSO), so see https://esriurl.com/k12sso. Also, turn off the permission to log into the Org via a social login. [2.6] Consider the remaining policies and whether your situation needs to engage these. The Access notice and Information banner may be useful for reminding members of key protocols, like not sharing anyone’s personally identifiable information (PII).   [3] Update your Org’s roles and privileges (default User and Publisher are not good for K12) [3.1] Schoolwork often involves collaboration, which is best accomplished by a user assigning over an item to another person – giving by the user, receiving by the recipient. These are special privileges not found in User or Publisher roles, so you need to customize roles to support this. See https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, pp.12-13 for examples and guidance. [3.2] Consider carefully the advantage of giving specific privileges to teachers, such as seeing all items, moving someone’s item, or making items public. [3.3] Establish a Showcase role and login. See https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, p.23. This is the safest way to share content the school/district wants to make public for an extended time. [3.4] Make your life easy by crafting well-designed settings for “New member default” which are needed for both SSO and username/password situations. See https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, p.22.   [4] Set credit limits [4.1] This can be done with new member defaults or on an ad hoc basis by role or individual. Protect against the accidental or purposeful squandering of credits by setting limits. See https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools, p.27.   [5] Organize content [5.1] Groups and Hubs are both valuable for organizing and presenting good content. Schools should have Groups for teachers, subjects, and all manner of subsets. Schools and districts should have Hubs for presenting content of value. [5.2] Admins should be setting and acting on policies for retention of users and content. This helps everyone optimize their experience by minimizing clutter.   These are all good steps to take anytime. Get a start on the new year when you have a little time to read, think, explore, test, and optimize. Help everyone have a better experience tomorrow. ... View more

During this time of reflection and thanks, who is the largest group you thank? There is a special group, of whom we've all had many, and perhaps more than we might first consider: teachers. The fortunate among us recognize many on our personal list: parents, elders, siblings, special friends, life partners; classroom teachers, club leaders, coaches, mentors, supervisors, colleagues; people who, thru few if any interactions with us, changed our lives -- Samaritans who, knowingly or not, by word or deed, by intervention or even just modeling, spared someone from trauma, lent a hand, or even just illuminated a particular path; those whose works, lives, and stories have given inspiration; and on and on it goes. It is indeed fitting and proper that we pause, give thanks to the formal and informal educators, current and past, who shaped our world … and, ideally, pay it forward, with interest, and intent. ... View more

Before joining Esri, I spent 15 years teaching social studies in grades 7-12. My department head was a brilliant woman, deeply knowledgeable about history, political science, economics, sociology, and culture. But her superpower was in getting students to converse. It is no easy task to get recalcitrant juniors and seniors to both speak and listen about matters that inflame. Privately, she was a “progressive,” but in class, all persons were expected to share views about all manner of subjects, openly, fairly, and rationally, even if passionately. Equally important, everyone needed to listen and be prepared to summarize fairly the thoughts expressed by others. She did this while remaining “intensely calm.” Listening to the news of today makes me long for one more chance to watch my mentor lead a discussion. I have pondered how she might open class. Famously, she often began with an innocent exploration of an event or a situation, and would then steer toward the fundamental lesson. Today, I thought about how I might do the same thing using National Geographic MapMaker.   I began with the US Ethnicity map, modeled so well by a rising 6th grader during opening day of Esri UC2023, using scale to demonstrate how so many people live in a multi-cultural world. I then thought about adding another layer on top – light pollution – and using the transparency tool on that layer to accentuate the populated places. Helping students use data to explore the world and understand more profoundly what they see, hear, and experience is a strategy tailor-made for social studies teachers. MapMaker offers an easy way to investigate the world. My mentor would have loved using it to launch a discussion.     ... View more

As a college undergrad in the early 1970s, my coursework centered on geography, anthropology, and futures studies. My final class involved a 3-week workshop in which futurist John McHale presented a small aphorism he had written: The future of the past is in the future. The future of the present is in the past. The future of the future is in the present. He said to interpret “The future” beginning each phrase to mean “the outlook.” In other words, the outlook of the past would be determined by how people in years ahead assessed it, while the outlook of today comes from what people did in the past, and the outlook of tomorrow depends on what we do today.   In 1969, McHale published a dense 300+ page book called “The Future of the Future,” looking at society and technology. It is sobering to look back on this. But what I remember most from that time was the simple translation he gave us, and his underscoring of choice and action. Studying systems — feedback systems, ecosystems, climate, air traffic, demography, and so on — I saw accelerating change. For instance, world population was at 3 billion when I started first grade and hit 4 billion while I was in grad school studying climate change; now, less than 50 years later, we’ve passed 8 billion. Atmospheric CO2 has been on a relentless march upward since the Industrial Revolution. We face today great and accelerating stresses because of choices made in the past. Today, we craft tomorrow — the future of the future is in the present. We are running out of time to reach some goals. But there are options.   Geography is about patterns and relationships. Understanding a situation is necessary for making good decisions and solving problems. Even complex puzzles can be solved, given the will to accept facts, to seek multiple perspectives, to grasp the interplay between relevant systems, to choose wisely, and to act. Choosing not to change is a choice, as is aiming for a low goal, or choosing a high goal, or deciding to pretend. We all choose and act, constantly. Helping learners today understand the dangers of our world — traffic, disease, tempests, and beyond — is important. Helping learners understand the future, and how we shape it, is essential. We need collectively to make better choices, and act in support of them. Promoting geography education may be the easiest powerful thing we can do.   ... View more

The 2024 ArcGIS Online Competition for US High School and Middle School Students begins today, presented by Esri and a new partner, the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). The event is a chance for students in grades 4-8 (MS) and 9-12 (HS) to investigate, analyze, and present about a topic of their interest from within their state. They use their own curiosity and gumption to build background knowledge, research skills, geographic perspective, GIS expertise, and presentation experience in working on a matter of their choice. It's a chance for students to show what they can do. Over the years, we have seen investigations of invasive species, historic treasures, patterns of the past as they play out today, safety hazards, delightful libraries, current social problems, and a host of other fascinating subjects through the creative and powerful minds of young learners. State awardees (up to 5 HS and 5 MS projects) earn $100 and a place on the national map, and state winners are entered into a national contest. Every state can participate but must have a formal leadership team in place. The demands on the leadership team have shrunk, thanks to NCGE (see the "Rules" page). Student entries must be in the form of ArcGIS StoryMaps, hosted in an ArcGIS Online Organization within an ArcGIS School Bundle. Esri makes these available to K12 schools, districts, and clubs at no cost for instructional use. GIS professionals, college instructors, grad students, education leaders, teachers, club leaders, parents, and community can all play a role in supporting this event. See how in a webinar from Directions Magazine. Help students see what's possible and show what they can do! (And if you or they are just getting started, that’s no problem; check out National Geographic MapMaker, and build from there!) Changes in the 2024 event from previous years, all visible more fully in the Rules page of the website: National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) is a formal partner States are no longer responsible for managing funds State leaders must be over 18; this was expected previously, but now stated explicitly Student projects must come from within an ArcGIS School Bundle license; this was expected previously but now an explicit requirement in order to protect student data privacy and avoid license confusion. Students residing in one state but attending school in another are eligible if and only if the school's state is participating; this was expected previously but now explicitly stated to avoid confusion. "Current original work by the students" was stated previously but is now spelled out more carefully to underscore work in the current academic year and to disallow use of generative artificial intelligence. The process for generating short URLs is spelled out more carefully. A calendar is added to the Rules page. ... View more

This is a plea to admins of ArcGIS Online Orgs in ArcGIS School Bundle Licenses: Take the one minute necessary to ensure there is a second "primary admin" for your Org. It's like a free insurance policy. Every week, we receive requests from schools to insert a new admin, because the only previous admin didn't do it. Whether out of hubris, selfishness, spite, procrastination, or just ignorance, their last admins didn't deem it necessary, and now their school Org is like a ship with the steering locked, and ship's bridge empty and locked. This can all be prevented by the admin doing three simple steps: Admin#1 ensures another trustworthy and Org-knowledgeable person is a member of the Org. Admin#1 ensures this other savvy person has the role of Org Admin. Admin#1 ensures the Org settings include both Admins as primary admins. Does this sound like your Org? Please, please, please see these notes, then take the above three steps: https://esriurl.com/agoorgsforschools  (p.18) https://esriurl.com/funwithgis316 https://esriurl.com/funwithgis306 https://esriurl.com/funwithgis246 So, what happens if an Org admin doesn't do this? A new Esri Technical Support document details the steps now required for remedy; it entails serious work by those left adrift. Just one minute could prevent it.   ... View more

One of the most impressive powers of a map is to astonish people. So many times, I have seen people look at a map, eyes focused immediately on the place they call home, and then darting left-right, up-down. They may be struggling with a high volume of data or coming to grips with the degree of differences between places. Dramatic symbols intensify the impact, and people study the map, mentally matching what they see with their lived experiences, and working to envision conditions elsewhere. Maps illuminate patterns, whether about tectonic activity, household income, precipitation, or population density. Use maps in the company of others often enough and you'll see the wide-eyed focus of someone gobsmacked by what they see. "Wow, look at this … we are …" and words trail off as they study more closely. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a powerful map-based online application called the Environmental Justice Index (EJI) Explorer. It presents an index built around environmental, social, and health burdens. Indexes give an "apples-to-apples comparison" over a large landscape, here by integrating different factors to show where challenges pile up, compounding trouble. An Esri blog about this helps readers grasp the challenges and consider how the tool can help citizens and policy makers go beyond just details, grasp the big picture, and focus on changing systems.   Clicking on a location brings up a bank of data about a Census tract. I looked at the map, zooming in and out, comparing here and there. I examined closely the deeply colored places in many areas I know, contrasting them with lighter ones.   But I was frustrated because the landmarks I knew were hidden by the opaque layer. The data layer is downloadable, so I might be able to make my own map, but I wondered if the data might already be visible on ArcGIS Online. Yes, a user had already done this for one area of my interest, and shared it. In Map Viewer, without logging in, I created my own map, zoomed in, raised the transparency, searched for an address, and clicked on the Census Tract. Wanting the background info about data quality, sources, age, and value, I visited the CDC EJI page once more and found the data dictionary (from their download page). Now I could explore my questions, my way.   So, beyond the power to astonish, what's a superpower of digital maps? Customization … it compounds the learning when one can modify the design or even build the maps. It is important to see what experts assemble, to understand the messages they want to transmit. But it also powerful to create one's own version, immersing in the data, seeing the patterns and relationships, banking knowledge while designing a personal experience. Customizing is a superpower! ... View more

On this day, when I was not quite two. a boy named Emmett Till was murdered. On this day, when I was not quite 10, a vast crowd assembled in Washington DC and heard Martin Luther King talk about a dream. On this day, when I was still 21, I walked off the Juneau Icefield after a summer of studying glaciers as climate indicators. Three simple facts are each part of vast scales and trajectories. As a student, the last days of my summer were never long enough. As a teacher, I loved the start of the school year. As a child, I was only vaguely interested by history and geography, because I was flummoxed by the torrents of facts. As an adult, I learned to see, seek, find, grasp, and use patterns and relationships. Teachers have long borne a heavy burden: to foster capacity, show truth, care, and build insatiable learners who question, explore, and branch out. Today like never before, we face the pain, backlash, and unintended consequences of growing too soon old and too late smart. Across USA and around Earth, we can today map the places and ways where some (often many) have been consciously inhumane and/or inconsiderate of consequences. We must also map trajectories, and strategies for healing and remediation. On this day, young students inherit an unfortunate position: they must learn as if their life depends on it ... because indeed it does ... just as it does for us older learners.  Eastern USA (2D), Juneau Icefield (3D) ... View more

Last winter, as many settled in for the holidays, I wrote a blog about a stress test for ArcGIS Online Organizations. I think many people were "on holiday time." I suggest reading that blog now, as the school year starts, and checking your Org. Many Org admins are preventing both fun and work by their colleagues and students. Even just fixing the first two of ten items goes a long way to boosting good use of your Org. Org has only one admin Org has only one primary admin Please look at Fun with GIS 316 and make sure your Org helps people succeed.   ... View more

National Geographic MapMaker, unveiled for the world by three rising 6th graders in the 2023 Esri User Conference plenary, has one simple but profound magical power for learners of all ages. This power — “new perspective” — derives from several different capacities, and happens from the first instant, even before dealing with any of the built-in “maps and layers.” Click the image to watch the 7:30 video of the student presentation.   Watch new explorers work with MapMaker and you’ll see a series of actions repeated almost endlessly, in infinite variation: pan, zoom in, zoom out, search, shift 2D-3D, tilt, rotate, swap basemap. Over and over, users will employ these simple steps because of innate curiosity and an intuitive interface, building profoundly important background and mindsets: What’s it like in places I know? How does that compare with places I’ve heard about, and with places I don’t know about? What patterns and relationships are visible at different scales? Pan and Zoom enable endless exploration, and are fundamental in building the massively important sense of scale. Those weaned on static maps have had a much harder time building a facility with scale. Zooming out, in, out, in, changing the map extent, and zooming again in, out, in, out … these steps build better senses of here/there, nearer/farther, similar/different, larger/smaller. Each of these explorations generates questions, even if not articulated aloud. The capacity for conceptualizing, asking, and addressing such geographic questions is essential for one to be a well-informed member of the world. The simple “What’s where?” question leads to “Why?” (even at a young age), and ultimately to “So what?” Click the image to visit the MapMaker webpage.   What's the big deal? Without a sense of "What's where? Why is it there? So what?", one hasn't a ghost of a chance of grasping the enormity of challenges facing us today. The capacity to perceive, grasp, and cope effectively with issues depends on one's ability to think from multiple perspectives, at multiple scales. We may weep for the devastation caused by recent fires in Hawaii, and any number of other disasters, but until we grasp scale, we cannot hope to appreciate the magnitude of the challenge we face in the coming years. Students of even a very young age can begin building the basic understandings necessary to help us move toward a better world. They can build that perspective with MapMaker. ... View more

At the 2023 Esri User Conference, a few hundred organizations from across USA and around the world each received a "Special Achievement in GIS Award" (colloquially: "SAG Award"). These go to far less than one tenth of one percent of all organizations using Esri software. Each is personally considered and approved by Esri President Jack Dangermond. This year, in K12 education, it went to Clark Magnet High School, of Glendale School District, in La Crescenta, near Los Angeles, California. Science/CTE teacher Dominique Evans-Bye was on hand to receive the award and talk with Dangermond.   SAG Awards represent a level of achievement to which others in the community can aspire. Evans-Bye has incorporated ArcGIS into a three-course CTE GIS pathway: Introductory-Honors Geography of Disasters Concentrator-Honors GIS & Remote Sensing Capstone-Honors Environmental GIS Other courses that use ArcGIS at Clark Magnet include The Living Earth and AP Environmental Science. In the Map Gallery at the User Conference, in the Youth Community Mapping zone, Evans-Bye talked with interested educators and other users, who were looking for ideas to try in their classes, and for potential students for their college programs, and perhaps even for potential employees. The knowledge, skills, and perspectives built up through years of experience investigating real world problems for which there is often no specific, pre-determined step-by-step plan to solve a problem is extremely valuable.   Schools, districts, states, clubs, and other programs have earned SAG Awards. It takes focus, hard work, and persistence, but it starts with a vision of what can be done with these powerful tools in the hands of eager learners and dedicated educators. ... View more