Latest Contributions by ClaireThurlowNZ

One of the ways that the school teacher that you mentor might ask you to help is by talking to a class of students about your pathway into the spatial industry. This is a fantastic opportunity to share not only your pathway but also some tips for avoiding rabbit holes / pitfalls ! Things that you might like to cover are: What is your current role and how is geospatial used in that role? How did you get to be in your current role? If you studied at University, what did you study at University? Who influenced your choice of a spatial industry career? Who influenced the course of your career? What pitfalls have you encountered on your career pathway? If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be? Points to note: All the Universities in New Zealand offer GIS papers. Some institutions offer just undergraduate papers while others have a post graduate option as well. The students will need to do a search on University websites to find these papers. Each university offers their GIS papers through slightly different schools. In most cases these papers can be completed as part of a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts, but the students would need to check.  Sometimes the topic of GIS is "hidden" in first year university papers in a generic introduction to broader topic for example in a  Geography 101 paper. Some New Zealand polytechnics offer GIS papers as well or if not papers then micro credentials If a student is not so academically inclined it might be worth encouraging them to approach a local or central government organisation about a GIS cadet role, several of these organisations do offer them.     ... View more

Creating a map showing different layers in ArcGIS Online Map Viewer is a great way for teachers and students to start to use GIS in the classroom. If they want to go further though, why not encourage the teacher(s) that you mentor to introduce spatial analysis into their classrooms? Introducing spatial analysis into the classroom will allow them to start determining relationships within and between layers, taking them a step beyond visualisation! Example of the results of the Calculate Density analysis in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer The below link takes you to an introduction video for the NEW Analysis tools in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer: https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/t/1_lg2oxmde If you would like to show your teacher(s) an example of how they could use analysis tools in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer, play them the video at the following link, this video takes them through a site selection example: https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/t/1_28fw54uo   As always, there are some items to be aware of when introducing new tools into the classroom! Below are a few items that you might want to be aware of while using the analysis tools in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer… For feature analysis in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer: the teacher / student must have at least a publisher role in the schools ArcGIS Online subscription to be able to access the tools the layers inputted into the tool must be feature layers the extent that you are processing when running the tools (this is under environment settings in a tool) the number of credits you are consuming to run the tool For raster analysis in the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer: the teacher / student must have an ArcGIS Image license assigned to their username in the schools ArcGIS Online subscription the raster analysis tools require at least one imagery layer as an input the extent that you are processing when running the tools (this is under environment settings in a tool) the number of credits you are consuming to run the tool If you would like some assistance with introducing the ArcGIS Online Map Viewer analysis tools with the teacher(s) you mentor in New Zealand or the South Pacific don’t hesitate to contact the Eagle Technology GIS in Schools team at gisinschools@eagle.co.nz   ... View more

Phew what a year, well done for all the hard work that you have done in 2022 with the teacher’s you mentor in GIS. There might be one last thing that you can encourage your teachers to do before the end of the year – if they have not already disappeared for their summer in the sun – and that is doing some student content and user management. If a student has left the school and they have no content that a teacher would like to retain they can be permanently deleted from the schools ArcGIS Online subscription. There is a video on how to do this at https://youtu.be/FmouftLfskQ. This video shows how to use Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online (the free version) to delete users and content in bulk using one easy tool. Do not forget that this delete is permanent and cannot be undone! Hopefully most New Zealand Schools ArcGIS Online subscriptions already have Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online already activated on their subscription, but if they do not, I recommend that you help add it via the Esri Marketplace. If you need some assistance in adding Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online to the subscription, please do not hesitate to reach out to gisinschools@eagle.co.nz If your teacher has disappeared for their summer break, it might be worth revisiting this post in the new year and enabling the teacher to delete their student’s content and username before the start of the first term of 2023. Meri Kirihimete me te Hape Nū Ia / Happy Christmas and Happy New Year Here’s hoping we get some sun to enjoy over Christmas and New Year! New Zealand Mistletoe ... View more

At the New Zealand Esri User Conference 2022 during the Growing GIS People session, we launched a new industry initiative entitled Careers in GIS. The central idea for this initiative is to enable the community to have a Hub that sells GIS as a Career to people who fall into four main personas: School students – targeting juniors at high school who are trying to make their subject choices but also seniors who are trying to decide what courses to take at a tertiary provider Graduates – targeting early talent, people just finishing their tertiary education study and looking to launch into the workforce, could include links to organisations’ intern and graduate programmes. Career Changers – information for people who are looking to change their career after being in the workforce for some time Volunteers – people looking to get some work experience in GIS or just wanting to make a difference in their communities using GIS, this information might include links to volunteer organisations that use GIS e.g. GIC   The personas would be prominently displayed on the front page of the hub and each persona would have a subpage with content to help that persona progress. For example, the school student sub page might have some of the following: Videos of people talking about what they do in their job and how they use GIS as part of that job Recommendations on what subjects to study at school and tertiary education providers Links to tertiary education providers who have GIS papers or programmes   The Careers in GIS hub would be hosted by Eagle Technology, but we envision the NZ Esri User Community would be contributing to the content of the hub. Call to action – at NZEUC 2022 we asked people to submit their name via the following survey123 form and add a comment around how they would like to help with this initiative. We are now extending this call to action to the wider NZ Esri User Community.  While this initiative isn't directly related to geomentoring at a school, it is another way that you can contribute to building the geospatial community in New Zealand. So please submit your details and ideas about how you can contribute here Mock up of the Careers in GIS page     ... View more

The team at Eagle Technology have been working really hard to create a new GIS in Schools web page experience for New Zealand.   The aim of this page is to make it easier for teachers to find teaching resources. Check the page out at https://gisinschools.eagle.co.nz/ Please share this page with any teachers that you are working with.   If you have any feedback on the page or its contents please log it at https://gisinschools.eagle.co.nz/pages/feedback You will also note that this page is inline with the design for several other Esri distributor's around the world so teachers get a similar experience with ArcGIS schools programmes whether they are interacting with Esri UK or Eagle Technology. ... View more

  One of the things the teacher you are mentoring might ask you to do is talk to students about how they can use Geography in the real world or as a career. This can potentially be daunting task so check out some of the resources below to help you craft what you would like to say: Esri UK - https://youtu.be/dOUYf5CyLQY - what do you want to be? Climate Scientist - https://youtu.be/snJkwwtYbFg GIS Manager - https://youtu.be/msJOEbuLQMk Conservationist - https://youtu.be/UthAwCvnyPM Health Geographer - https://youtu.be/FCB2QDBhFVc Source: Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash ... View more

Being able to create an elevation profile is considered a core geographic skill in the New Zealand Geography Curriculum. The process of creating an elevation profile in ArcGIS Online has recently changed and this might be something that you want to let the teachers you mentor know. To create an elevation profile in ArcGIS Online you no longer need to create a web app you can create an elevation profile directly inside the ArcGIS Online scene viewer. Instructions on how a elevation profile can be created in the ArcGIS Online scene viewer can be found at https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/get-started/scene-elevation-profile.htm Elevation Profile of Mt Ruapehu   ... View more

If the teacher you mentor is just starting out on their GIS journey they might need to polish their basic skills in GIS. Esri has a great resource that gets teachers started with ArcGIS Online at https://learn.arcgis.com/en/paths/getting-started-path-for-teachers/ that you might want to recommend to your teachers. If the teacher you mentor is wanting to create a Story Map to help make their lessons more interactive the tutorial Esri offers at https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/share-the-story-of-an-expedition/ will enable your teacher to create their first Story Map. You might want to initiate the conversation after the teacher has finished the tutorial about how they can apply what they have learnt to a subject that they are teaching in 2022. Maybe it tourism, climate change or natural hazards. Or maybe the teacher is wanting to enable their students to create their first interactive map. You will may need to help the teacher load their students into the schools ArcGIS Online account - step 2 on the New Zealand GIS in Schools Getting Started page might help you with this hunt out sources for data that can be used in the map - the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World might be a good place to start to add data from a ArcGIS Server web service to a map There are lots of other ways that you can help your teacher to develop their GIS skills to a level where they can incorporate GIS in their lesson plans. Perhaps you can share some other ideas, that have worked for you, as a comment on this post.   ... View more

If the teachers you mentor are wanting to up skill themselves in the use of ArcGIS Online before they let their students loose, I would recommend the two new Learning Plans that have been released on Esri Academy. ArcGIS for Teachers: Discover ArcGIS Online ArcGIS for Teachers: Visualising and Analyzing Geographic Information  Both learning plans will require the teacher to have Esri access enabled on their ArcGIS Online username. This can be enabled by guiding them through the help documentation. ... View more

Often times Secondary School Teachers, working predominantly in the Social Studies and Geography subject areas, are looking for a place to start when it comes to introducing GIS into their classroom. The NZ GIS in Schools Programme has just released an updated collection of resources to help answer this cry. Visit https://arcg.is/9raqH to view the resources, they are divided into a series of ArcGIS Story Maps by New Zealand School Year level. Don't forget to give the teachers that you mentor this link as well 😉 so they can explore the possibilities of using GIS in the classroom. Getting Started with GIS in Schools Collection of useful resources   ... View more

While New Zealand finds itself in the unfortunate position of being back in COVID19 alert level 4 this could be the perfect time to encourage the teachers you mentor to get their students using an ArcGIS Survey123 form. How you say? Well we are allowed out of our houses to exercise, so why not get the students to collect data about local features around their houses? Perhaps the local features could have a theme, like: litter locations. council assets that need fixing, which could be reported back to the local council. street light placement which could be tied into a lesson on safety after dark once the data is collected. graffiti locations. The students would need to think about the type of questions they want to answer as part of the activity. The students could create a web map and / or dashboard of their data as part of the activity. Below are some links that could be used to help the teacher that you mentor to get started with this activity. Getting Started with Survey123 Create a Web Map Create a Dashboard Hopefully COVID19 alert level 4 won't last very long, but the skills learnt during this time could be used when the teachers and students are back in the classroom for primary data capture when researching other topics 😊. ... View more

ANZAC Day (25 April) is fast approaching and your teachers might be looking for materials to remember the people of New Zealand and Australia who were killed in war and to honor our returned and serving servicemen and women. Some of the below resources might be a cool way for your teachers to incorporate GIS in their classrooms for ANZAC day Story Map - ANZACs @ Gallipoli, from a NZ perspective Story Map - Victoria Cross Winners of New Zealand Story Map - For King and Country, following an Australian soldiers journey to Gallipoli       ... View more

Your Pepeha is a way of introducing yourself and it identifies who you are, where you are from and where you belong. The NZ GIS in Schools programme has recently released a lesson that allows students at schools to easily map their Pepeha. This lesson can be found here. If you are mentoring a teacher that doesn't necessarily want to jump into doing GIS NCEA assessments or is teaching younger students and just wants to introduce digital technology into their classroom this lesson can be an easy way to do this. The lesson uses ArcGIS StoryMaps and does require each student to have a login to their schools ArcGIS Online account. If the school that you are working with doesn't have an ArcGIS Online account feel free to contact gisinschools@eagle.co.nz to order a Free ArcGIS Schools Bundle for the school. We encourage you to run through the lesson yourself before introducing it to the teacher you are mentoring. There is also a Pepeha Story Map that you can access at https://arcg.is/fK9i5 to see just how simple mapping your Pepeha can be and look.  Enjoy sharing this lesson with the teachers you mentor. ... View more

Some of the schools you work with, in New Zealand, might have a large number of students that they need to manage in ArcGIS Online. To take the pain out of this management process we encourage schools to setup Single Sign On (SSO) on the schools ArcGIS Online subscriptions. As the majority of teachers who are working with GIS are not IT people they sometimes need a translator between themselves and their IT person to enable SSO on a schools ArcGIS Online subscription. You can be that translator! If you are a bit unsure yourself what SSO on an ArcGIS Online subscription actually is, check out this fantastic post from the Esri Education team talking about SSO focused specifically on requirements for schools. Also be aware that schools are welcome to touch base with the Eagle Technology support staff to help with their implementation of SSO process as well.     ... View more

Well the school year is now mostly over in New Zealand, therefore, your geomentoring has probably wrapped up for the year already. There is no doubt, it has been a challenging year for all people, but mostly especially for our school teachers! They have done a fabulous job continuing to educate New Zealand's young people and you have done a fabulous job supporting them with GIS in the classroom. Well done! So to round out the year for this community I would like to share a couple of URLs. The first is to a twelve "days" of Christmas StoryMap The second is to an oldie but a goodie the Merry Christmas Map. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and New Year. New Zealand Mistletoe ... View more