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Exciting news about more K-12 support for Québec and French Canada

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Author Angela Alexander

Discover what’s coming up for French-speaking educators in Québec and across Canada. This blog post will highlight new support including resources and training opportunities!

The Education and Research group at Esri Canada provides resources, professional development and ongoing support to educators who use GIS in their teaching across Canada. With the year coming to an end, we are pleased to announce that 2021 will bring more French resource options and support to K-12 educators in Québec and across the country.

These include new resources on:

  • Canadian biomes: students are prompted to discover the different biomes in Canada, and to explore the interrelationship between animal-species diversity, climate and vegetation zones
  • Green infrastructure: students will explore what green infrastructure is and will discuss how the components of an urban neighbourhood can affect a person’s life and their quality of life
  • Canadian cultural identities: students will reflect on the diversity of the population in their community and how it enriches their community
  •  And much more!

Whether you are with your students in the classroom or in a virtual setting, all the resources will be accessible through the  K-12 Resource Finder.

Keep your eyes peeled for workshops and training opportunities. Starting in the early spring of 2021, virtual workshops will be scheduled regularly.

You can expect:

  1. GIS in K-12 Education – This workshop will explore freely available and curriculum-specific resources for ArcGIS Online mapping software across various grades and subjects within the Quebec education curriculum. With these resources, students can problem-solve by asking relevant local and global questions, acquire and analyse relevant data, and communicate their findings using maps. In this workshop, you will learn how to incorporate our resources and software into your teaching.
  2. Get Data – Make Your Own Maps:  ArcGIS Online is a cross-curricular GIS tool that strengthens spatial literacy and supports inquiry-based learning. With ArcGIS Online, students are actively engaged in creating, sharing and analyzing digital maps, story maps, data, and apps.  You will leave this workshop with hands-on training in creating maps using your own data and open, current data.
  3. Collect and Share Your Data – In this hands-on session, educators will learn how to create a collaborative field study using Survey123, a free, Web-based digital survey tool in Esri’s ArcGIS Online software. With this, students can create interactive surveys that allow them to collect data using their preferred device whether at home, at school, or outside in the community. A survey is a great way to gather primary source data on a community’s people and environment. You will also learn how to communicate the results of the survey, using Esri’s interactive tools.
  4. Create A Web App:  Story Maps are an engaging storytelling tool that incorporates the use of maps, text, photographs and other media. In this workshop, we will share how you can engage and inspire your students using the ArcGIS StoryMaps builder to visualize and share your data. Follow along as we outline the flexible storytelling options, the built-in express maps, and explore the pre-designed themes that you can apply to your story and data.

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Teachers from Québec during an ArcGIS Online workshop.

Currently, we are connecting daily with educators through emails, phone calls, virtual meetings and @SIG_a_lecole, our French Twitter account. In the new year, we will continue to connect in the same way, but we will also expand our connection avenues.

In 2021, our community of K-12 educators and GIS Ambassadors will be able to meet and share their GIS stories on Facebook. Starting in January, we will have a Facebook page and a Facebook user group for Quebec that will allow you to connect with us and each other. Look out for information about our launch dates in upcoming blog posts.

If you would like to connect with a GIS Ambassador who’s available to volunteer their time and expertise to support a teacher and students through projects, presentations and workshops, request a GIS Ambassador today!

If you’re passionate about GIS and would like to join our community and get involved in cool projects with Canadian youth and other educators fill out this form and become a GIS Ambassador yourself. For inspiration, read stories from our French-speaking GIS Ambassadors Claude, Liliana and Benjamin.

Check out some of our latest French resources here:

This is an activity that explores the landforms of Canada and asks students to create elevation profiles.

And finally, in addition to our support email k12@esri.ca, we now have a new email specifically for you to reach us in French, for technical support, project assistance and much more!  Send your questions to milieuscolaire@esri.ca.

Happy Mapping!

This post was originally written in French by Arabelle Sauvé 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.

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