Fun with GIS 332: Teaching Social Studies
Before joining Esri, I spent 15 years teaching social studies in grades 7-12. My department head was a brilliant woman, deeply knowledgeable about history, political science, economics, sociology, and culture. But her superpower was in getting students to converse. It is no easy task to get recalcitrant juniors and seniors to both speak and listen about matters that inflame. Privately, she was a “progressive,” but in class, all persons were expected to share views about all manner of subjects, openly, fairly, and rationally, even if passionately. Equally important, everyone needed to listen and be prepared to summarize fairly the thoughts expressed by others. She did this while remaining “intensely calm.”
Listening to the news of today makes me long for one more chance to watch my mentor lead a discussion. I have pondered how she might open class. Famously, she often began with an innocent exploration of an event or a situation, and would then steer toward the fundamental lesson. Today, I thought about how I might do the same thing using National Geographic MapMaker.
I began with the US Ethnicity map, modeled so well by a rising 6th grader during opening day of Esri UC2023, using scale to demonstrate how so many people live in a multi-cultural world. I then thought about adding another layer on top – light pollution – and using the transparency tool on that layer to accentuate the populated places.
Helping students use data to explore the world and understand more profoundly what they see, hear, and experience is a strategy tailor-made for social studies teachers. MapMaker offers an easy way to investigate the world. My mentor would have loved using it to launch a discussion.
