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Geography Awareness Week is here! Let’s celebrate GIS Day 2020!

Happy Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day!  It’s time to celebrate the power of maps and the importance of spatial thinking. Whether you’re new to GIS or an avid user, it’s a great opportunity to promote this special day by highlighting students’ work, sharing interesting projects created using ArcGIS Online with your colleagues and administrators or to just have fun with maps! Find out what Esri Canada is doing this year to celebrate!

Geography Awareness Week is here and GIS Day is on November 18th! Looking for a way to celebrate this mappy holiday?

We have been sharing GIS Day ideas on Twitter @GIS4Teachers and through our K-12 Listserv. Sign up today to get the listserv updates.

Join us for Esri Canada’s first virtual GIS Day event! Hear directly from users in many fields and academia on interesting projects and applications. Presentations will be in the form of short “lightning talks” with time allotted for questions. While the event goes from 11:30AM to 3PM ET, once you have registered, feel free to pop in with one of your classes, during a break or when even you are able to join. I will point out that from 1:30PM to 2:20PM ET, there are guest speakers from both K-12 and post-secondary education.

1:40 – 1:50 PM ET

Andre Boutin-Maloney and Elizabeth Ingram will share their experience using ArcGIS StoryMaps to develop “Finding Common Ground: A Self-guided Treaty Walk of Fort Qu’Appelle.” According to Koops (2012), a Treaty Walk is “a hike, a stroll, a field trip with Treaty on the mind.” Boutin-Maloney and Ingram share this innovative pedagogical approach that combines tangible physical locations with opportunities to reflect on and reinterpret our understanding of the Treaty. They invite you to listen as they describe their experiences as researchers, learners, and educators using GIS with their students to embrace ethical spaces of engagement and incorporate the Truth & Reconciliation Commission calls to action.

1:50 – 2 PM ET

This past school year, Tony Cushman’s Grade 3 students used ArcGIS to investigate recess at their school. Find out how these young students used Survey123, Dashboards, and Story Maps to collect and analyze data from every student at their school, and what they discovered about the ‘state of play’ at Rolph Road Elementary as a result.

Read more about the Esri Canada GIS Day event.

Check out the following resources if you are interested in getting started with GIS in your teaching.

  1. Sign up for an ArcGIS Online account for yourself and your students at k12.esri.ca/#access.
  2. Educators - Let’s get started with ArcGIS Online resource
  3. Students – Enroute with ArcGIS Online resource
  4. Other free resources can be found at k12.esri.ca. – Lessons, tutorials, activities, etc. 

Happy Mapping!

This post was translated to French and can be viewed here.

About the Author

Angela Alexander is a K-12 Education Specialist in the Esri Canada Education and Research group. She has over 15 years of experience working with educators across Canada. Angela focuses on producing geographic information system (GIS) and curriculum-specific resources, and conducting and creating custom workshops for educators. She manages the GIS Ambassador Program and is the Technical Chair for the annual Skills Ontario GIS competition. Angela also writes monthly posts for the Esri Canada Education and Research blog, highlighting K-12 educators and partners, new ArcGIS resources and GIS-related events.

Profile Photo of Angela Alexander