Geography: Key for Resilient Communities & Healthy Planet
Understanding Geography is critical to making wise decisions that builds resilient communities and a smart planet in face of climate change.
We are living in amazing times. We have never before been so empowered--and yet so challenged.
5 forces acting to position geography and spatial thinking on the world stage.
Joseph Kerski's pathway. What's your pathway?
One of the maps I made when I was a teenager.
What teenager cares about address ranges? I did.
I guess things haven't changed that much... still a geo-nerd.
Esri's 3-fold mission: Education, Sustainability, Science.
Esri's 3-fold mission.
The largest donation of land ever given to The Nature Conservancy, by Esri founders Jack and Laura Dangermond ($161 million). Esri also gave $12 million to support E.O. Wilson's Half Earth Foundation.
Esri, like other organizations, depends upon and contributes to the development of science: https://esriurl.com/scicomm and https://esriurl.com/agustories . Maps have become the language of science.
GIS for Science--new book from Esri Press.
Could it also be that the fact that so many Esri employees studied geography that the Earth ethic pervades the organization?
Other companies are taking Earth stewardship seriously as well: Microsoft's AI for Earth.
Esri, along with many other organizations, hires graduates--your students!--who can thinking spatially and critically.
Geography is also playing a key role in the research, development, and education surrounding the UN's SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).
Home | SDGs
Geography has changed, but remains true to its core tenets.
(1) Scale. (2) Systems Thinking. (3) Holistic Thinking. (4) Spatial-temporal thinking: Patterns, relationships, trends. (5) Acting on geographic information.
Geography is actually--revolutionary!
Geography and geotechnologies are essential for learning and also essential for the planet.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has also changed.
Modern GIS: (1) Cloud-enabled. Interoperable. Accessible. (2) App-based. Shareable. (3) Data and analytical tools as services. (4) Tied to major IT developments: IoT, AI, open data. (5) Tied to societal issues: Location privacy, copyright, citizen science.
Citizen science, mapping, and analysis: https://esriurl.com/citizens
Story Map Series
GIS is no longer a "niche" technology but embedded in mainstream IT.
Analytics as a Service provides spatial analysis tools for an increasing number of disciplines.
GIS has moved from a system of RECORDS to a system of ENGAGEMENT.
The GIS platform integrates all types of information.
As GIS has become a platform that integrates all types of information, maps are becoming the language of science--the language of the planet.
Current weather--11 variables for every airport weather station and many ocean buoys around the world--nearly 5,000 stations, updated hourly.
Sea surface temperature over space and time.
AI, GeoAI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning
The relationship between AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning.
Example application: Modeling Seagrass: Model relationship between seagrass habitats <-> ocean conditions. Seagrasses can quickly sequester up to 100 x more CO2 and 12 times faster vs. tropical forests (Parry et al., 2007). Lack of data: Hence, AI+GIS+Machine Learning.
For every condition, seagrass habitats are predicted using the trained random forest model. Getis-Ord Gi* statistic (Ord & Getis, 1995) is used for detecting the clusters of seagrass abundance over space-time bins . Assessing changes in the intensity of abundance at locations over time using the Mann-Kendall statistic yields emerging hot spot map.
Traditional GIS based analyses.
Model created through the combination of GIS and AI.
Australia could lose its seagrasses under changing ocean conditions; Siberia coast may improve its suitability for seagrass habitats. The use of random forest in this AI application enables a data-driven model of seagrass habitats for world’s coasts.
The Koeppen-Geiger Observed and Predicted Climate Shifts interactive map.
Exploring hex-bins.
Another example of AI, big data, and GIS: Consider the following scene.
Using AI to capture and map everything in this scene--electrical infrastructure, traffic routing and amount, types of business, pavement condition, vegetation species and health, weather.
The Future is now: The LocateXT tool.
The LocateXT tool from Esri extracts location information from DOC files, social media, TXT, PPT, XLS, PDF, HTML, and other formats.
Locate XT tool--extracting location information from a variety of media.
Why teach with GIS?
- Teach content knowledge, skills, and the geographic perspective simultaneously.
- An inquiry-driven, "what if" approach.
- Applying geography to understand and solve real-world complex problems.
- Encourages spatial thinking, scale thinking, systems thinking, and critical thinking.
- Encourages work with data and societal issues surrounding data.
- A purposeful use of technology that provides in-demand career skills.
- AND THE LAST, MOST IMPORTANT REASON: ___________
Great that you care about the environment! Who is going to pay you to care about the environment? Acquire GIS and other skills to bring value through applying skills and knowledge to ______ (The Nature Conservancy, CSIRO, ...).
Teaching geography must include fieldwork: Collect data with your students but also - instill a love for the planet.
Guess where?
Let's get practical! How can you embrace this "geography as the science of where" paradigm in your own instruction?
Ask questions, investigate, solve problems, use GIS and other investigative tools in your investigations.
Ways to teach with GIS:
- Use existing activities tied to interactive web maps.
- Dig deeper into data tied to existing lessons or other data.
- Create your own activities based on your own course objectives.
- Gather, map, and analyse data in your own community.
- Create and give oral and written presentations with story maps.
using...
- One projector, one computer – everyone engaged.
- Multiple computers in BYOD mode.
- In the field using Survey123, clipboards, and other apps.
Advice on teaching with GIS:
- Examine which activities you are teaching could be enhanced through GIS.
- Teaching with rapidly evolving technology requires you to learn along with students.
- Have a Plan B (when a layer does not pull up, the web is slow, etc.)
- GIS is a system, an entire discipline (GIScience). Give yourself time for the journey. Start with something doable and achievable. But the key is to START.
- Don't go it alone: Network with colleagues to share ideas and best practices. Because one is the loneliest number that you'll ever...
6 Specific Ways:
(1) Take the GTAV spatial technology course: https://www.gtav-ecourses.asn.au/courses/certificate-of-competencies/module-4/
Outline: 1. An introduction to Geospatial technologies 2. Using spatial technology in Geography 3. Analysing change over space and time 4. Exploring regions 5. Mapping your own data 6. Analysis and synthesis 7. Formal assessment.
GTAV Spatial Technology Course.
Story map of trees of Australia.
If you develop these 10 fundamental GIS skills, you can do anything!
If you grasp these 10 skills, you can do anything with GIS.
(1) Opening, saving, and sharing maps.
(2) Changing scale & selecting map layers.
(3) Measuring & bookmarking.
(4) Changing symbology & classification.
(5) Working with tables and filtering data.
(6) Collecting and mapping field data.
(7) Configuring popups & map notes.
(8) Saving & sharing maps.
(9) Creating web mapping applications such as story maps and operations dashboards.
(10) Performing analysis: Proximity, summarize, routing, spatial statistics.
(2) Help students think critically about data--including spatial data.
What is noticeably absent on the satellite image on the right?
Example: Imagery on live web maps.
Images and vector street data are offset in China on Google Maps--which is in the correct position? Most sources say "neither".
(3) When you teach geography, you are teaching geoliteracy.
The 3 legs of the geoliteracy stool.
Ecological Marine Units Explorer.
(4) Teach with selected web GIS maps and apps.
(1) Start with an activity tied to interactive maps:
https://esriaustralia.com.au/gis-for-schools Esri Australia Schools
https://www.esri.com/geoinquiries - Esri geoinquiries.
https://learn.arcgis.com Learn Lesson Library, including the climate and weather lessons: https://learn.arcgis.com/en/gallery/#?q=climate&t=lesson
Selected hands-on climate lessons.
(2) Use Web mapping applications.
The Urban Observatory: http://www.urbanobservatory.org/compare/index.html
Visualizing and understanding migration over space and time.
IoT: Water Balance App: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/ waterbalance/
Multimedia interactive storymaps: https://storymaps.arcgis.com
(2) Dashboards: A dashboard is a view of geographic information that helps you monitor events or activities by displaying multiple visualizations on a single screen. A local government example: Johns Creek Georgia: http://datahub.johnscreekga.gov/
(3) The Esri Living Atlas of the World.
https://livingatlas.arcgis.com A curated, authoritative library of hundreds of data sets from government, industry, and nonprofit data contributors from all over the world.
Wayback imagery: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/ Examine change over space and time with high-resolution imagery for the entire planet. New in November 2020: Swipe tool to compare imagery!
Earth investigations: Name that place:
Name that Place--an investigation created with ArcGIS Online.
Historical imagery in ArcGIS Online.
(5) Use the tools in combination -- they are all part of a web GIS platform. Example: field survey, story map, and Operations Dashboard.
The evolution of geography, GIS, and our planet, can and SHOULD change instructional practice.
You are teaching with a SYSTEM | There is no single pathway.
There is no 1 single pathway when teaching with GIS -- that is the appeal, and also the challenge.
Selected Esri Press books.
Modern curricular approaches | cookbook activities | Teaching students how to learn.
WE WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH LESSONS!
What is the best tool to use?
Don't get too tied to the tools. What is the best tool to use?
Consider the attitude when cholera was found to be a water-borne human-caused illness.
We have skilled, energetic people, powerful tools, and rich and varied data. We can solve these problems! As a geography educator, you have a critical role in shaping the future!
References
- Hu, Y., Li, W., Wright, D., Aydin, O., Wilson, D., Maher, O, and Raad, M. (2019). Artificial Intelligence Approaches. The Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge(3rd Quarter 2019 Edition), John P. Wilson (ed.). DOI: 10.22224/gistbok/2019.3.4(link is external)
- Kerski, Joseph J. (2014). Earth Inquiry: Investigating the Earth using web mapping tools. Interaction: Journal of the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria (Australia). 42(1): 9-17.
- Parry, M., Parry, M. L., Canziani, O., Palutikof, J., Van Der Linden, P., & Hanson, C. (2007). Climate change 2007-impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: Working group II contribution to the fourth assessment report of the IPCC. Cambridge University Press.
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Created by Joseph Kerski, PhD GISP
