Esri Training

Educator Guide
For the Get to Know GIS (for Secondary
Students) Learning Plan

July 2020
Copyright © 2020 Esri
All rights reserved.

Document version 3.0 Version release date July 2020.

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Contents
Taking the courses ..............................................................................1

Accessing the web courses .......................................................................................... 1

Accessing ArcGIS Online .............................................................................................. 2

Course Teacher Tips.............................................................................4

Tips for all courses ......................................................................................................... 4

Exploring GIS Maps ....................................................................................................... 6

Getting Information from a GIS Map ........................................................................... 8

Using GIS to Solve Problems ...................................................................................... 10

Telling Stories with GIS Maps ..................................................................................... 12

Putting Your GIS Skills to Work .................................................................................. 15

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Copyright ©2020. All rights reserved.
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Taking the courses
To complete the web courses in the Get to Know GIS (for Secondary Students)
learning plan, students must be able to access two resources:

• Esri Training website (to access the web courses)

• Your school’s ArcGIS Online organization (to access the GIS application)

Adults may use standard procedures to access and obtain user accounts for Esri
Training and ArcGIS Online. For students of minor age, however, you may need to
choose options that protect students’ personal information.

Accessing the web courses

When you launch one of the courses in the Get to Know GIS (for Secondary Students)
learning plan, you have the option to sign in or to access the course anonymously
(without signing in).

Anonymous access is the simplest option and the one that we recommend for minor
students. With anonymous access,

• Students will not be prompted to sign in to Esri.com. Esri will not have personal
information about students.

• Students who pass the course quizzes or exam will NOT receive the usual
certificate of completion. In this case, you may want to find a different way for
students to show you that they have passed the exam or to assess their
learning.

You, the educator, and other adults might prefer to sign in to Esri.com when you take
a course. When you sign in, we can track your progress through the course, and you
can receive a certificate of completion that will be saved in your training history.

If you choose to have students sign in to Esri.com to access a course, keep these
points in mind:

• You can take steps to enable students to use their ArcGIS Online organization
credentials to sign in to Esri Training. (The ArcGIS Online organization

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 administrator can “Enable Esri Access” for each student account.) In this case,
we recommend that you set up “generic” ArcGIS Online user accounts that do
not include students’ personal information. You can read more about what is
meant by a “generic” account and how to create them in the document, ArcGIS
Online Organizations for Schools and Clubs, page 12, and starting on page 26.

• Course certificates will show a student’s generic user name, not their actual
name.

• Course certificates are associated with an Esri-enabled account until the

ArcGIS Online account is no longer Esri-enabled, and the account is deleted.
This means that if you reassign generic user accounts to other students, they
will have access to any course certificates that a previous student earned. And,
unless the password is changed, the previous student could continue using
the ArcGIS Online and Esri accounts.

Accessing ArcGIS Online

This document assumes that you have already set up an ArcGIS Online organization
for instructional use.

About ArcGIS Online for Schools

ArcGIS Online is a cloud-based GIS for using, creating, and sharing maps and apps. An
ArcGIS Online organizational subscription is included in the ArcGIS for Schools Bundle.
The bundle of mapping software is available at no cost for instructional use to individual
U.S. K12 schools, school districts, and states directly from Esri. Beyond the U.S., the
bundle is available to schools worldwide through Esri’s network of international
distributors.

Information about setting up and administering an ArcGIS Online organization is

available in these resources.

• ArcGIS Online Help, in the Administer section

• ArcGIS Online Organizations for Schools and Clubs (in the Esri K12 GIS Organization
resource portal)
• Teach with GIS: Implementation Guide for your Classroom

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Students will need to sign in to their ArcGIS Online organization to save their maps
and access certain GIS tools and resources. The following table indicates which
courses in the learning plan use ArcGIS Online and for what purposes.

Course title Why an ArcGIS Online organization

user account is needed

Exploring GIS Maps Save work

Getting Information from a GIS Save work

Map

Using GIS to Solve Problems Perform analysis

Save work

Telling Stories with GIS Maps Save work

Share story map (optional)

Putting Your GIS Skills to Work Not used

Note: Adults can use an ArcGIS Online public account to complete all courses except
Using GIS to Solve Problems. Course exercises in Using GIS to Solve Problems require
GIS analysis tools that are available only to ArcGIS Online organization members.
(Refer to the following Course Teacher Tips section for more information.)

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Course Teacher Tips
The information in this section pertains to the courses included in the Get to Know
GIS (for Secondary Students) learning plan:

Exploring GIS Maps

Getting Information from a GIS Map
Using GIS to Solve Problems
Telling Stories with GIS Maps
Putting Your GIS Skills to Work

The learning plan itself is simply a way to organize the courses. No Esri certificate is
issued for completing the learning plan.

Tips for all courses

The following information pertains to all the web courses in the learning plan.

• The web courses are self-paced. Students may work independently to

complete the material.

• We suggest that you complete the courses yourself before assigning them to
students. You can test the computing environment, make sure that students
have the prerequisite skills, and devise ways to introduce the material, engage
students in discussion, and so on.

• Course exercises do not depend on completion of exercises in another

course.

• The courses include videos. If students are working in a classroom

environment, you may want to encourage students to use a headset or
earbuds. Alternatively, you can arrange to watch the videos as a class.

• Keep in mind that the internet is a dynamic environment. While Esri strives to
keep courses up to date, occasionally a link may break or an ArcGIS Online
interface may change.

• Each course includes a short multiple-choice exam or set of short quizzes.

Exams or quizzes are intended to be a self-check to aid in learning, not a

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 rigorous assessment. A student can leave the exam to look up an answer, but
they should open the course page in a new browser tab. Otherwise, when
they return to the exam, it may show different questions.

• If signed in, students receive a digital certificate of completion when they pass
a course exam or quizzes. They can view or download the certificate from their
My Learning Activity page.

Note about course design format updates in 2020

Over several months, beginning in July 2020, each course will be updated to a
new design format. When published, the new course will simply replace the
previous version.

• Students accessing a course anonymously will always see the most current
course.

• Students who sign in and enroll in a course will receive an alert message in
their training account up to 30 days before the expected publishing date.

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Exploring GIS Maps
Course description
In this course, students learn basic facts about maps and geographic
information systems (GIS). Relatable examples convey how GIS maps and
tools can help them and others understand the world, perform critical tasks,
and make smarter decisions. Exercises have students explore satellite
image maps of the United States and make their first map using a web-
based GIS called ArcGIS Online.

Vocabulary
basemap: A map depicting locational reference information, such as
landforms, roads, landmarks, and political boundaries.

feature: A representation of a real-world object on a map.

GIS: Geographic information system. GIS uses interactive maps to analyze

data and help answer questions about the world.

layer: A collection of related features in a GIS map. The features in a layer

usually have the same theme, geometry, and set of attributes.

For example, a GIS layer might use lines (geometry) to represent streets
(theme) and include the name of each street (attribute).

scale: The ratio or relationship between a distance or area on a map and

the corresponding distance or area on the ground. Scale is commonly
expressed as a fraction or ratio.

Example: A scale of 1:1,000,000 means that 1 unit on the map equals 1

million units on the earth. In other words, 1 inch on the map shows 1
million inches on the earth (about 189 miles).

spatial analysis: The process of examining the locations, attributes, and

relationships of features in spatial data to address a question or gain
useful knowledge.

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Activities for continued learning
To continue learning about GIS after completing the course, consider
sharing these activities with your students.

Watch a video
• View The Science of Where: Unlocking Data’s Full Potential.
• View See What Others Can’t.
• View Episode 1 on the Pennsylvania State University Geospatial
Revolution site (13 minutes).
• View What is Location Intelligence?
• View Let Science Speak – Dr. Dawn Wright, Esri Chief Scientist.

Practice your skills

Keep exploring Imagery and other basemaps on ArcGIS Online. For
practice, mark some places with map notes, and then save your map.

Are you wondering what places to look for? To get started, consider the
following ideas:

• The place where you or your parents were born

• A town or city you would like to visit
• Your favorite entertainment venue
• A country on the other side of the world
• A place that is unlike where you are right now
• The bottom of the ocean
• The home stadium of your favorite sports team
• A place that you have read about

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Getting Information from a GIS Map
Course description
GIS maps are interesting to look at, but they are more than just maps. GIS
maps are windows into a database. In this course, students learn to access
the data connected to map features to answer questions about the world.

Vocabulary
attribute: Nonspatial information about a geographic feature in a GIS,
usually stored in a table and linked to the feature by a unique identifier.
For example, attributes of a river might include its name, length, and the
amount of solid matter, or sediment load, carried by the river and
measured at a gauging station.

attribute table: A database or tabular file containing information about a

set of geographic features, usually arranged so that each row represents
a feature and each column represents one feature attribute. In a GIS,
attribute tables are often joined or related to spatial data layers. You can
use the attribute values in those tables to find, query, and symbolize
features.

field: A column in a table that stores the values for a single attribute.

legend: The description of the types of features included in a map. Legends

often use graphics of symbols or examples of features from the map
with a written description of what each symbol or graphic represents.

style: An organized collection of predefined colors, symbols, properties of

symbols, and map elements.

symbol: A graphic that represents a geographic feature or class of features.

Symbols can look like what they represent (trees, railroads, theaters), or
they can be abstract shapes (points, lines, areas) or characters. Symbols
are usually explained in a map legend.

thematic map: A map designed to convey information about a single topic

or theme, such as population density or geology.

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Activities for continued learning
To continue learning about GIS after completing the course, consider
sharing these activities with your students.

Practice your skills

Explore attribute tables and layer styling using attributes in ArcGIS Online.
Use one of the maps you made in this course to try the following ideas:

• Use the Hot Spots style for earthquakes. See how the map looks with
different basemaps.
• Find the place where you live, and then measure the distance from
that location to the nearest tectonic plate boundary or strong
earthquake on the map.
• Open the attribute table for Major Cities, and then sort the table to
locate the top 10 cities in the world by population.
• Style the Cascades Volcanoes layer using the Type attribute. Does
the map show a pattern?

Explore an ArcGIS Online tutorial story map

To learn more about the topic of the course, explore one of the following
tutorial story maps:

• How to Smart Map: Heat Maps

• How to Smart Map with Clustering
• How to Smart Map: Relationships

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Using GIS to Solve Problems
Course description
Asking geographic questions is part of everyday life. However, many
geographic questions are complex and require the power of a computer—
and GIS technology—to answer them.

This course introduces a five-step process for investigating geographic

questions. In the exercises, students use ArcGIS Online tools to solve a
realistic community problem.

Student user account privileges

Course exercises use ArcGIS Online analysis tools. To complete the
exercises, student user accounts require a Publisher role or a custom role
that includes these privileges:
• Publish hosted feature layers
• Spatial analysis

Vocabulary
buffer: An area (polygon) that covers a given distance from a point, line, or
area feature.

filter: A GIS operation that hides (but does not delete) features in a map or
attribute table. Filters also define a subset of features for analysis.

geoprocessing: A GIS operation used to manipulate GIS data. A typical

geoprocessing operation takes an input dataset, performs an operation
on that dataset, and returns the result of the operation as an output
dataset.

geoprocessing tool: An ArcGIS tool that can create or modify spatial data.
Geoprocessing tools perform functions including analysis (examples:
find locations, buffer, find hot spots), data management (examples:
dissolve boundaries, merge layers), and data conversion (example:
export data).

query: A request to select features or records from a database. A query is

often written as a statement or logical expression.

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 service credits: The currency for ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Online consumes
service credits when you use certain functions, such as spatial analysis,
routing, and geocoding. Service credits are also referred to simply as
credits.

spatial analysis: The process of examining the locations, attributes, and

relationships of features in spatial data to address a question or gain
useful knowledge.

workflow: A set of tasks carried out in a certain order to achieve a goal. For
example, GIS tools may be used in a certain order to carry out an
analysis.

Activities for continued learning

To continue learning about GIS after completing the course, consider
sharing these activities with your students.

Watch a video
• Listen to students from Lurgan, Ireland, tell how they used ArcGIS to
investigate lingering divisions in their community and find ways to
grow peace. Lurgan Schools: The Differences We Share.
• Learn how two high school students from Hawaii are making a
difference with GIS: Mentoring the Next Generation.

Practice your skills

Build your skills with ArcGIS Online analysis tools. For example, make a
copy of your Grenshaw mural study map and try the following tasks:

• Create a half-mile buffer around the Existing Murals layer (using the
Create Buffers tool).
• Find the suggested mural sites near elementary schools (you define
the criteria).
• Find hot spots of suggested mural sites.
Practice your mapping skills by changing the style of one or more of the
results layers you created.

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Telling Stories with GIS Maps
Course description
Story maps are a popular way to share information. They combine GIS
maps with text, photos, and sometimes video to present a topic as a web
app. In this course, students explore different kinds of story maps and learn
to create their own.

Option to share story maps

The second course exercise includes an optional step for students to share
their story maps with their classmates. To support this option, you (the
teacher) must create a group for this purpose. Then, you must add the
students as members of the group.
• When creating the group, the following options are suggested:
 Choose status as private or organization (not public).
 Make members contributors.
• When inviting users (students), use the option to add members of the
organization immediately, without requiring confirmation. Otherwise, if
you are using generic student accounts, invitation emails will be sent to
your administrator email, and each one will require a response.
• Refer to the ArcGIS Online Help (Share tab) for details about creating
and managing groups.

Allowing students to share their story maps includes the following benefits:
• Students learn a workflow for sharing their work with others, which is a
key feature of ArcGIS Online.
• You (the teacher) have a way to easily review student work.
• If time permits (perhaps after students complete the course exam),
students have an opportunity to see, react to, and discuss each other’s
stories. They can practice giving and receiving constructive feedback.

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Vocabulary
web app: A software program that delivers information to the user through
the World Wide Web, usually in a web browser. Story maps are web
apps.

Activities for continued learning

To continue learning about GIS after completing the course, consider
sharing these activities with your students.

Note: Esri’s story mapping product is in transition. Esri Story Maps, which is
the template-based product used in this course, is now referred to as
“classic story maps.” Esri Story Maps is gradually being replaced by a new
story map builder, ArcGIS StoryMaps.

The two products have different websites. The links below generally point
to the classic story maps pages. However, students might enjoy trying out
the new story map builder, so links are provided for that web page, too.

Practice your skills

Experiment with your Three Adventures story map.

1. On ArcGIS Online, click Content, go to My Content, and then open

the TellingStoriesWithMaps folder.
2. Click the More Info button next to the Modified date, and then
choose View Item Details.
3. From the item page, click Configure App.
 On the General tab, try adding a Splash Screen.
 On the Theme tab, try changing the header, button, or panel
colors.
 On the Options tab, try adding other tools, such as Display Layer
List, Legend, Measure Tool, or Overview Map.
4. Click Save, and then click Launch to open the web app and look at
the changes.

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 Explore more story maps
 Examine Exploring New York City’s Vibrant Street Art Scene.
 Examine The Kingdom of Copper story map, and read an interview
with the story map author, in the blog article, Digging into
archaeological research through digital storytelling.
• Go to the classic story maps Gallery and search a topic that interests
you.

Do a lesson to learn a new story map technique

• Create a swipe story map (PDF) comparing high school graduation
rates with unemployment rates
• Create a spyglass story map (PDF) comparing key locations in
Washington, D.C., in 1851 and 2016.

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Putting Your GIS Skills to Work
Course description
GIS is more than a fun tool to explore maps—it is an actual career. This
course is intended to get students thinking about their future. In this course,
students will find out where GIS professionals work, what they do, and how
their educational choices prepare them for different types of jobs.

Vocabulary
geospatial technology: A set of technological approaches, such as GIS,
photogrammetry, and remote sensing, for acquiring and manipulating
geographic data.

metadata: Information that describes the content, quality, condition, origin,

and other characteristics of data or other pieces of information.

Activities for continued learning

To continue learning about GIS and careers after completing the course,
consider sharing these activities with your students.

Watch another geospatial career video

View more geospatial career videos on Explore Careers in GIS, produced
by Virtual Job Shadow in partnership with Esri. In addition to the videos in
the course, videos are available for these GIS careers:

• Climate scientist • Civil engineer

• App developer • Volcanologist
• Helicopter pilot - • Research geographer
firefighter • GIS agricultural analyst
• Conservationist • GIS Developer/Drone
• Health geographer pilot

View the video Let Science Speak – Dr. Dawn Wright, Esri Chief Scientist.

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 Explore more GIS job and career websites
Explore attribute tables and layer styling using attributes on ArcGIS Online.
Use one of the maps you made in this course to try the following ideas:

• The GIS Jobs Clearinghouse

• GISjobs.com
• Geojobs.org
• O*NET OnLine (GIS search; geospatial search)
• GIS Lounge
• AAG career page (American Association of Geographers)
• URISA career page (Urban and Regional Information Systems
Association)

Research scholarships in geospatial technology

Look for scholarships for geospatial technology studies on websites such
as CollegeScholarships.org.

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