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Earth Day 2023: Explore our world with ArcGIS

In honour of Earth Day on April 22nd, integrate maps and apps that explore our amazing planet. In this blog post, you will discover ArcGIS resources to use with your students and share with your colleagues.

This year’s Earth Day theme is “Invest in our Planet.” ArcGIS is a great tool to dive into this theme as it can help us to understand, analyse, visualize and make decisions about our world. This can be at a local, regional, national or global level.

An image of a beautiful satellite image of the earth.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Take a look at the resources we put together for this year’s theme.

Lessons

How Green is your Neighbourhood
In this lesson, you will explore your neighbourhood/school block using a map to discover negative and positive contributors to climate change.

GIS for Wildlife Conservation 
In this Career Path Series on GIS for Wildlife Conservation, you will get a snapshot of how GIS is used to make informed decisions about protecting wildlife.

A screenshot showing a biodiversity map of Canada.

Discover Canada's biodiversity with the GIS for Wildlife Conservation lesson.

Marine Debris in the Pacific Ocean
Gain a deeper understanding of ocean currents, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the impact of marine debris on humans and ocean ecosystems.

Story Maps and Apps

ArcGIS Living Atlas Indicators of the Planet

ArcGIS Living Atlas Indicators of the Planet provides a single point for finding some of the most timely information covering a variety of environmental and social topics. Each GeoCard updates using the Live Feeds methodology and provides additional resources such as links to contributors, maps, StoryMaps, and Learn ArcGIS lessons.

Celebrate Earth Day Every Day
This Esri collection of story maps covers topics related to our planet.

A screenshot showing thumbnails of story maps.

Explore stories about the planet in this Esri story maps collection.

Happy Mapping!

New to ArcGIS Online?

If you are a K-12 educator new to ArcGIS Online, you can request an account for yourself and your students at k12.esri.ca/#access.


Explore the Esri Canada K-12 Resource Finder to find other resources for your class.

Check out the following beginner resources to get started with ArcGIS Online:

For Educators - Let’s get started with ArcGIS Online
Explore the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

For Students – Enroute with ArcGIS Online

Using ArcGIS Online and want to learn more?

Discover Story Maps
Survey123
Creating ArcGIS Dashboard

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