Fun with GIS 339: GIS, STEM Ed, & Creating the World We Want to See
Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics … for decades, US residents have heard a persistent call for STEM education. (Sometimes, people add Arts, making "STEAM.") Backgrounds in STEM can help young people build up toward a vast array of careers, and GIS can be both a powerful toolset and modus operandi in most of these arenas. One need only look at Esri's Industries webpage for confirmation.
STEM education and GIS had a prominent position at Esri's 2024 Federal GIS Conference, when Tonya Wilkerson, Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ("NGA") stepped to the mic as the final keynote speaker. "We happen to have many [scientists] at NGA, where our motto is 'Know the world, show the way, from seabed to space.'" NGA is working to boost the "STEM talent pipeline, starting in kindergarten, all the way to those starting second careers…" Key within this is advancing "our geoint knowledge and tradecraft." Besides NGA's prominent role in coping with "bad actors," NGA also is key to humanitarian efforts and disaster response, and understanding all the forces affecting national security. GIS is essential.
GIS provides opportunities in data collection, management, analysis, visualization, integration, interpretation, presentation, and policy making. Throughout, people are questioning, designing, modeling, building, inventing, creating, discovering, and sharing. Building these skills -- these habits of mind -- opens limitless opportunity for learners of any age to play a powerful role in "creating the world we want to see" (the theme of the conference).
The 21 conference videos, including that of Tonya Wilkerson, are all online. Teachers and students alike can see what GIS users are doing, how advances in software and processes are used in industries from agriculture to big data and generative AI. The 4-minute opening video asks and shows how people are working together to create the world we want to see, and GIS is fundamental to all of it.
