New ESRI GIS support materials

Jason Sawle shared this on World GIS Day.

Part of a forthcoming set of resources for students and teachers to explore the world.

Using the new 2021 Census mapping - a student guide

Thanks to Ahmad Barclay for the heads-up (once again) on ONS data and map releases from the Census 2021.

📈Big new data release today on #CensusMaps!📉
See how your area has changed over the past 10 years, right down to a neighbourhood levelhttps://t.co/mIj0ahCHBd
1/3 pic.twitter.com/RiBEdwmq9E

— Ahmad Barclay (@bothness) March 7, 2023

These maps are going to be very helpful for a lot of teachers and students. 

I put a quick guide together which you are welcome to use / download / distribute: 

Census data and maps are shared under an Open Government License.

Google Earth Education

Launched in the last day or so: a new set of tools and resources and a rebrand for Google Earth continues, with this new Google Earth Education section.
See the resources and tools here.

More to come when I get the chance to explore in more detail...

ArcGIS Online now free for all UK schools

We have been using ArcGIS Online in school for several years now, and ESRI UK have kindly given us a free subscription for the last few years so that we can share our work.

At the end of the Awards presentation at this week's GA Conference Stuart Bonthrone, the MD of Esri UK stood up and made an announcement which was in some ways inevitable after events previously in the USA, and also very welcome.

Stuart announced that from immediate effect, ArcGIS Online will be free to all UK schools.

Under the heading of "The Science of Where", Stuart then played a short video featuring the inspirational work of Thierry Torres and colleagues at Dover Grammar School.


If you want to know more, and sign up your school, head for the ESRI UK Schools page.



I also had the chance to meet Steve Richardson, who is being employed to produce new resources and materials for teachers to encourage more use of the tool in classes.
There are already over 60 resources available, with plenty more to come.



Finally, check out the GeoMentors programme, which pairs up schools with GIS professionals.

Sign up your school now

New updated Mapstream page

A few years ago now, I wrote a whole suite of lessons for Edina's MapStream for Schools service. For those who don't know what this is, it's a streaming service for the Ordnance Survey's mapping. Unlike Digimap for Schools, which has a set of tools that come with it, this provides a stream of the maps themselves, which can then be visualised by another GIS tool, such as QGIS.

Check out the updated website… and the resources… and MapStream….

Serious GIS

A great new site from Garry Simmons, who has really taken ArcGIS and explored what it can do in the Geography classroom. He's also shared what he can do in a number of places, but now has the Serious GIS website, where materials will be appearing over the year ahead.

You may wish to read about a regional CPD day in October that Garry is organising with Jason Sawle of ESRI. Details here (PDF download) 

At £25 for the day that looks like a bit of a bargain !!

Aberdeen Google Earth Day

As well as the GA course on Google Earth and Free GIS that I am leading in London on the 25th, I shall be running two sessions in Aberdeen on the 29th of October
These are on Free GIS in the classroom, and the context for them is the arrival of new qualifications for schools in Scotland called National 5.

I'll be showing some opportunities for using some free GIS tools, and also showing the Digimap for Schools resources that I produced.
It follows on from the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers conference, where I will be leading a workshop which looks at the materials that I produced for using Digimap for Schools.

The context for my workshop at SAGT is the Disney-Pixar film 'BRAVE' which obviously has a strong connection with Scotland, and also with its landscape.

The materials will be able to download after the event...