Teaching Current Events? There's a (GIS) Map for That...

I continue to be amazed with the amount of (free) resources available for introducing students to (and engaging them with) GIS. If you want a quick overview of what GIS is and how it relates to geography, consider this video. You can also click on the "GIS" tag/label to find my other entries on this topic.

ESRI's Storytelling Maps page

Storytelling with Maps
I was recently introduced to a few ESRI resources that help students learn about past and current events through maps and GIS data. An excellent resource is ESRI's Storytelling with Maps. There, you can explore topics ranging from Fracking /Shale Gas Boom to The Real Pirates of the Caribbean to Health Care. You can even explore costs by state under the Federal Healthcare Exchanges initiative (i.e., Affordable Care Act/Obamacare). Exploring these topics digitally through time and space is a great opportunity for students to begin learning how to interpret data and maps.

ESRI's Time and Place Module: Indian Removal Act of 1830

Additional Resources
ESRI also has some additional resources worth mentioning. Their "Time and Place" modules include topics such as the Dust Bowl and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Students are provided maps and documents as a way to integrate information from a variety of sources to form an argument. (Notice the potential Common Core connection here?)

GIS Jobs
Finally, those not sure why GIS should be part of the curricula in secondary schools need only be reminded on how many public and private sectors use this information. ESRI provides several snapshots of these GIS-related jobs, too (e.g., farming, military, retail stores). P-12 education is catching up with this approach to geography, and these (and other) free resources are making this topic more accessible to schools on tight budgets. Happy exploring...

More GIS

I've admittedly been away from my posting for too long, and the number of amazing resources out there continues to proliferate. I have a lot of catching up to do, so here's a start...

Let's talk about Geography Geography is not memorizing states and capitals or regurgitating the locations of countries around the world. Sure, that may be an important skill for some, but this discipline deserves more serious attention in PreK-12 schools.

Recently, I've had students working a lot with GIS, and this is an area I want to continue to explore, and here's why. Consider the image below. It shows the types of public and private industries that use GIS. Each link takes you to different stories/testimonials about how companies, government agencies, etc. use GIS. For example, "Retail" takes you to stories about how companies that range from Nike to Petsmart use GIS for their business.

ESRI's look at how industries use GIS.

As this site illustrates, just about any job students may be interested in is using GIS in some form. Granted, if we source this website, we will find that it is produced by ESRI, a major GIS software developer and clearninghouse. Their bias aside, GIS is still an important tool we should be exposing students to in our classrooms. But how?

Below are a few more resources to help GIS become a major focus in the classroom. Some sites are just cool tools, others are full-fledged curricula that let students use GIS as an invaluable research tool.

Where are People Moving?
An interesting GIS map Forbes Magazine compiled allows the user to see where people were moving to and from in 2008. For example, if you click on Jackson County, IL, you see arrows reaching the county from various other counties around the US. When you "mouse over" these other counties, a pop-up will reveal how many people moved to Jackson Co. from that county in Oregon and how many people in Jackson Co moved to Oregon. This is a great tool for teaching the theme of Movement with a contemporary lens.

Interactive Forbes Movement Map

To find free GIS maps similar to this one from Forbes, read this mapcruzin.com blog entry.

Tornadoes Everywhere Google Earth is another great tool where we're seeing a lot of universities and private interests use to create interactive maps. One example of a topic of relevance here in the Midwest is tornadoes. Recently, Joplin, MO was in the news as one of the deadliest tornadoes in recent history. If students want to explore this topic further, they can use the interactive map at tornadopaths.org. Here, students can view where tornadoes touched down within the last 48 hours, on this day in history, or near a specified zip code. Clicking on the tornado icons that appear on the map allows the user to see the tornado's path, level of destruction, and fatalities.

Map from tornadopaths.org

If teachers are interested in keeping up with the other types of GIS-type tools are out there, they can check out this amazing blog: www.gearthblog.com.

Google Earth Blog

GIS for History
This site deserves its own entry, but I'll at least mention it here. At gisforhistory.org, students (and teachers) are provided with four full lessons: Slavery in America, The Great Migration, The First Census: America in 1790, and US Expansion. In each module or unit, students work with primary source documents and an interactive map to explore certain questions such as "What factors made this migration possible?" (Great Migration Question). Scoring guides are provided in the teachers section. Click on the graphic below for more information on how to navigate these incredible maps.

Examples of map features from gisforhistory.org

Netflix Queues via GIS

Who's renting Twilight? via NY Times

Here's yet another fascinating use of GIS technology. (I blogged about free GIS applications in a previous post.) This technology is even more powerful when a teacher can reference popular culture for "educational purposes." For example, check out this NY Times article that provides interactive maps detailing Netflix users' DVD queues via GIS technology. Interactive city maps include New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington, Bay Area (e.g., San Francisco), L.A., Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami. A great use of these maps is having students compare rental patterns (e.g., Twilight, Milk, Taken, Doubt) to Census demographics presented through gCensus and Google Earth. That is, what variables seem to attribute to the high number of Twilight rentals in certain neighborhoods? Number of teenage children or number of single adults? Ok, kidding aside (I should actually see the movie before I criticize it), this article is a great example of how map analysis (with a pop culture spin) and GIS can be made even more accessible in the classroom.

Free GIS with Google Earth

Recently, I've been learning how to use GIS software, namely ArcGIS, to figure out more ways to include these tools in my methods courses. I agree with the literature that--in terms of pubic school curricula--this powerful tool takes Geography beyond the typical states and capitals ditty most of us experienced in grade school. ArcGIS is amazing (including its K-12 equivalent, My World GIS), and many people are doing great projects in schools with these projects. The GIS Storms Sewers Unit is a good example (see image below).

via Storms Sewers Unit

Yet, I wanted a free online tool that was more accessible to teachers and students. I was thrilled to come across gCensus today. It is powered by Google Earth (which I finally downloaded today, too) and it is exactly what I wanted.

via gCensus

Simply put, gCensus allows you to use 2000 Census data to construct maps. Google Maps allows you to include/overlay various features such as locations of schools, highways, businesses, and the like. To get started, just click (as indicated) on the "please click here" link on the gCensus homepage. Then select a state, county, and the data you want mapped. Below is a simple map that depicts the concentration of African Americans in Cook County, IL.

Map created in Google Earth with gCensus