Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day 2024
November 18-22, 2024 | November 15, 2024
Map Something
If you are only able to do one thing for Geography Awareness Week, map something. Below are three activities, listed in increasing complexity, that even young learners can do, with support. Try some mapping! You'll like it!
Learn to place a marker in the right spot on a map (20 minutes of class time)
Add your school to a map (primarily for teachers, or as a class activity) (10 minutes of class time)
West Virginia Pet Survey - Add your data to the map whether you have pets or not! (20 minutes of class time)
Resources to Support Educators
- Mapping Hour is a set of 20 informal one-hour instructional videos about ArcGIS Online for parents and teachers, with chunks that scaffold concepts and skills for using ArcGIS Online in K12 instruction. The videos take users from an initial experience with GIS to integrating tools for an involved project. The website will present the full series of 20 videos.
- Sign up for the GIS listserv for information on resources and instructional support. Email Erika Klose, eklose@k12.wv.us , to be added.
- Supplemental Resources from ESRI - https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/education/overview
- GIS Career information - https://www.virtualjobshadow.com/partners/esri/
- Watch the GeoSpatial Revolution videos - http://www.geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/
- GIS at WVDE - https://wvde.us/middle-secondary-learning/gis/
- Learn about the 2024 WV Story Map Contest - Your students can enter!
- Mapping the Spread of Disease - https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/5b349752e9264206bea96a404a69c52d
- Thanksgiving geopuzzle , Pardoning Pickles available here for use with students.
- A fun GIS Day webinar Join me for my annual GIS Day live webcast - Esri Community .
Classroom Activities
Visit the GIS Day website for additional resources - https://www.gisday.com/en-us/resources
Activities designed for grades 1–4, aged 5–10:
- Creating a Paper Map from an Aerial Photo
- GIS Day Comic/Coloring Book [zip] [zip-50MB]
- Coloring Sheets [zip] [zip-79MB]
- Thinking Spatially Using GIS
Activities designed for grades 5–12, aged 11–17:
Give students an official GIS Day Certificate for their participation - https://www.gisday.com/content/dam/esrisites/en-us/media/certificates/g593179-gisday-certificate.pdf
Set up your accounts (teachers and students) at WV Student Maps - Visit WV’s own mapping website http://wvstudentmaps.maps.arcgis.com/ . This account is used to login to the WV Student Maps site (where you can create your own maps), as well as ESRI training , and Survey123 . Before accessing these additional sites, however, the account must first be activated at WV Student Maps.
Instructions:
- To activate the account, simply visit the site above.
- Click Sign In (upper right).
- Sign in by clicking WVDE WEBTOP SSO.
- Log in with your Office 365 email and password.
- Your account is now created.