PLANTING THE SEEDS Version 2

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/briefings/0cb71ee89bfb41b8b2d5f12fbacd1db1

Elevations GeoSummit:  Planting the Seeds to Ensure that GIS Has a Future

I ask you, the GIS community, who sees GIS as

• More than just an exciting career
• More than just a set of fascinating maps and visualizations

OUR WORLD IS NOW BEING CHALLENGED

• But rather as absolutely essential to address key 21^st C global problems and issues that increasingly affect our country, states, communities, and our very own families.

>> How will you ensure that GIS has a future?

BARBED WIRE

Scientific and technological achievements are often celebrated as dramatic, standalone events. The first radio transmission. The first steps on the Moon. The first model of the human genome.  Some inventions like Barbed wire seem so commonplace but transformed land use and whole ecoregions.  But nearly all progress that matters has been centuries in its evolution and is built on the work of visionaries and teams.   I salute this community:   I know your accomplishments are not a peaceful, easy feelin’… but have been achieved through knocking on many doors, breaking down barriers, and patiently but consistently convincing many others.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

Isaac Newton famously said that if he could see farther than others, it was because he “stood on the shoulders of giants.” You all – the geospatial innovators, stand on the shoulders of Newton and others between our time and his. And you do so in a more profoundly connected way than even Newton could have envisioned.  You are a community in all that word means:

CALWOOD

Fellowship, joint participation, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In the Politics of Aristotle it is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to a polis.

Have you ever met anyone in GIS who is closed to giving data, sharing methods, and mentoring others?  Indeed, all those in GIS care ultimately about 2 things – the Planet, and its people.  That drives everything else that we do.

43 N 107 W

Your work arises from the deep human sense of place – we love this land! – we want to protect it – and from the mutually reinforcing revolutions in sensing, analyzing, predicting, and communicating that today’s GIS make possible.

SUSTAINABILITY STARTS WITH GEOGRAPHY

The more vividly we can see and assess the state of the world’s climates, forests, waters, wildlife, human settlements, the more acutely we realize the dangers to them all.

GIS ENABLES THE GEOGRAPHIC APPROACH

But the same GIS tools that serve as stark advance-warning signals also show us how—and where—we can best act to turn an ominous tide. Technology offers the tools, but success depends on all of us sharing our knowledge, working together, considering the best alternatives.

KANSAS

Ahh!  We stand on the shoulders of giants with these new ways to see where we are now and where we are going. Your work gives us all an even clearer view.  You are building the NSDI!

WYOMING

I share this scene to remind you that You ask — the whys of where—why do the water quality measures trend this way in this area of the watershed?  Why does severe weather seem to have this trend over space and time?  Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?  Wait, that was the Carpenters.

The title of this keynote is ensuring that GIS has a future.  Given the pressing issues of our time, you may say “Joseph, of course GIS has a future, doesn’t it?”

LITTER MAP

Indeed, despite articles 20 years ago that proclaimed that GIS would be so embedded in IT workflows that it wouldn’t be a separate “thing” by the 2020s.   GIS has become embedded in—government, nonprofit, business, where many people are now empowered to use GIS at least to some extent.  In your local government, for example, we have gone FROM “oh, you need some maps or geospatial data, go see the GIS staff down the hall and to the right…” (they’re geeky but nice folks) TO many are empowered to use some GIS – parks and rec, assessors, public works, transportation, zoning.  In the world of education, where I work, in K12 education, GIS has spread from science to social studies, to language arts, history, mathematics, and other subjects.  Because with a few clicks, you can go from this to this…

BUSINESS EDUCATION
In higher education, GIS has spread from GIScience, geography, and environmental science to business, civil engineering, city planning, architecture, economics, and emerging data science programs.

TEACHING MATHEMATICS

My new book for example focuses on core concepts that secondary and undergraduate mathematics instructors must teach – set theory, ratios, measurements, algebraic expressions, and shows them how they can teach those concepts with digital maps and GIS tools.

JOSEPH QUESTION

However, GIS is still rather misunderstood.  You and me making maps, sometimes it feels like you and me making maps…  “Why do maps still matter in  21st Century schools and universities?” and “Golly gee, haven’t all the maps been made?”, or “Why do we need GIS training for my staff when I have Google Maps on my phone?”

PHONE
Perhaps because maps are so well embedded in our easily accessible weather apps, in the ways we navigate across campus or the public library, in our fitness apps, package tracking, and in our ride-share apps that are built on maps and addressing that THIS community BUILT – but some do not associate the mapping technologies they use day-to-day with a discipline.  Perhaps it is because of the inherently interdisciplinary nature and the applicability of GIS that makes it hard to “find a single home” in educational institutions—it’s like the sand in a conglomerate that binds the cobbles of recognized disciplines together.  

BORED STUDENTS

Perhaps it is because we have not purposefully and rigorously taught spatial thinking in our primary and secondary schools:  Geography?  Yep, I had that in 7^th Grade.  Perhaps because some geography is still taught as “memorizing place names, imports, and exports”.  Or perhaps it is because of all of those reasons.  Thus I encourage you to be ready to articulate “why where matters” and the value of GIS to anyone you meet at a moment’s notice.  Chances are that in your workplace, you will be required to articulate this, so be prepared!

CONNECTED YET VULNERABLE

Competing voices exist in education and society, and often these voices drown out our consistent but admittedly gentle “you need to consider the spatial aspects…”—maybe we are sometimes too gentle.  Specializing is time well spent.  But don’t forget the holistic perspective that is so needed in our world—grounded in geographic thinking, that recognizes that the spheres are connected, the atmosphere is connected to the biosphere is connected to the lithosphere is connected to the hydrosphere is connected to the anthroposphere.  This perspective is well grounded in Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Native Indigenous Community here in the region—the Shoshoni, Pauite, Nez Perce, and others. 

Indeed, GIS has also supported ecosystem models and helped us realize that everything is related to everything else—that my actions or inactions here affect your life there, which makes the geographic approach an empathic endeavor. Geographic thinking is the ability to use interdisciplinary data to model these relationships and perform geographic analysis to show how they connect and interact. 

We feel connected and empowered YET we also feel vulnerable – not just from COVID, but natural hazards, and things in our own communities and families … we need each other, now more than ever.

ZAGROS MOUNTAINS

GIS is a disruptive technology—it was created to look across and through barriers.  That is what we need, for the energy, water, land cover, soil, biodiversity, and other problems we face do not stop at political boundaries—city, county, state, national—they transcend them.  They do not stop at physical boundaries—ridges, watersheds, clifftops, ecoregions—they transcend them.  They do not stop at disciplinary boundaries—economics, engineering, geography, history, language arts, biology, sociology—they transcend them!  

As much as we celebrate the innovators in our world, they disrupt the status quo and at times are marginalized, and/or forced out.  I have known educators who are told by their principal—you are a science teacher, why are you working with the social studies teachers on this GIS stuff?  You are in parks, why are you working with community planning?  In education, we have segmented K-12 mostly into subjects, and in departments and schools in higher education—GIS and spatial thinking as a bridge between these is often a square peg in a round hole. 

I say to all of you facing these challenges—continue to be visionary:  It may be that you need to move your organization into a forward thinking one.  It may be that you need to move to a different organization to keep yourself moving forward. 

MY PATHWAY
Because as my own pathway shows, (1) you don’t need to stay at the same organization your whole career, and (2) spatial thinking and geotechnologies will be valuable to you no matter where you go.  And to be sure, despite my prior statements, there ARE workplaces who will value your interdisciplinary out of the box thinking!   It is a journey – wheel in the sky keeps on turning….

5 FORCES

I submit that there are 5 societal forces that bring us to a key time in our field:  These forces are debatable and somewhat subjective but arise from the 350 schools and 450 universities I have visited over the past 30 years across 20 countries and through 300 conferences and events. 

Geo-awareness:  The world faces complex challenges that are global in nature but also increasingly affect individuals’ everyday lives. Not a few hours pass without the impact of natural hazards on human populations.  Energy, health, political instability are issues that impact the politics and economics of nations and the social fabric of local communities. Sustaining agriculture and fisheries are critical to food supplies. Water quality and quantity are fundamental to the existence of humanity.

These challenges, long fundamental to what the GIS community studied, have now become a part of the public consciousness and everyday conversation—I hear this on airport shuttles, in stairwells, in public libraries. A heightened awareness exists that these issues are serious, affect individuals’ everyday lives and need to be solved. There is also growing realization that they occur somewhere, at multiple scales, with specific spatial distributions, patterns, temporal components and linkages.

Geo-enablement:   Everything in everyday life is geo-enabled. Webcams recording traffic, bird counts or parking spaces, from Earth-imaging satellites to sensors recording water quality, weather feeds, tracking packages or ride shares, our fitness apps.  As geo-enabling extends to home thermostats and appliances, the Internet of Things and smart cities are built. As these measurements become mapped, they become,  a “nervous system” for the planet.

LIVING ATLAS APPS

Geotechnologies:  Until recently, geospatial data and related tools, methods and data were used largely by those in GIS and scientific fields. Today, millions of maps and satellite images are viewed hourly. Great to have docs in the cloud.  Wonderful to have music in the cloud.  I submit that it is even more wonderful to have GIS in a cloud-based as a Service platform. Why?  Not just to share data, but workflows, methods, results, so we can collaborate.

5 FORCES

Citizen Science:  The largest part of the Internet of Things’ sensor network is not the electronic sensors but the 8 billion strong general public, providing information about the planet as has never been gathered before about everything from birds to pine beetle infestations to traffic snarls.

Storytelling:  For centuries, maps have been valued because they provide a large amount of detail in a small amount of space (China maps on silk, Babylonian clay tablets, Al Idrisi’s map on silver), and because of their capacity for telling a story. Any person with a smartphone or computer can use maps to tell their own multimedia-enriched story. This has enormous implications for data quality.  There are over 4 million story maps, alone, in existence!

Will these 5 forces occurring today be enough to generate and sustain the interest of the general public, policymakers and educational administrators? Will this enable geospatial to become a fundamental, funded, respected subject throughout education and in decision-making throughout society?

STOOL OF GEOLITERACY
To grapple with 21^st Century issues requires a geoliterate populace that can use geographic information to make wise decisions. To Pattison, in 1964, geoliteracy included four traditions: spatial, area studies, human-land and earth science. In 1984, researchers Natoli, et al identified 5 themes: movement, region, human-environment interaction, location and place. In 2012, Edelson stated that geoliteracy should include how our world works, how our world is connected, and how to make well-reasoned decisions. I believe that geoliteracy requires cultivation on each of 3 legs of the stool of geographic literacy: core content, skills in using geographic tools and the geographic perspective.

Core Content is important, yet often maligned, because it is often equated with memorization of facts. Core content is richer than facts, involving systems thinking: ecosystems, climate, culture, watersheds, oceans, land use, governments and Earth-Sun relationships. Core content includes natural phenomena (how ocean currents affect climate) and cultural phenomena (sense of place).  If you wish to be effective in your use of GIS, know a core content area!  If you are running a weather model in your GIS, you need to know something about weather systems.  Ditto for a model on Supply Chain Management, transportation, hydrology, or anything else.

Skills:  While some are map-focused (analyzing remotely sensed imagery), others are not (critical thinking, assessing data quality, organizing data, fieldwork, and communications). Don’t JUST focus on GIS skills alone.

Fundamental to skill building is the geographic inquiry process of asking geographic questions, acquiring geographic information, exploring and analyzing data and acting on knowledge gained. Researchers and practitioners advocate that geography should be taught often and deeply, in problem-based learning environments, using difficult to solve “wicked problems.” Fact-based worksheets are minimized; hands-on work, discussion, and communication are maximized. Inquiry includes tackling real issues–landfills, urban greenways, pros and cons of fossil fuels extraction, and implications of population growth and decline. In each case, mapping is seen as the key to understanding patterns, relationships and trends.

The perspective also includes critical thinking — questioning where data come from, how to manage uncertainty, how problems are framed and the scale at which problems are addressed.

GTCM
Evidence points to increased attention and funding for geoliteracy, such as the National Science Foundation’s Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education Project and the community college GeoTech Center, which resulted in the Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM). The GTCM is clear that successful use of geospatial technologies relies not only on software skills, but upon personal effectiveness competencies (I love these – are you ethical?  Organized?  Can you deal with data?), academic competencies (communications, geography, mathematics, science, and engineering), and workplace competencies (teamwork, creative thinking, problem solving, working with technology, and business fundamentals).  Use the GTCM periodically for assessing your own gaps—and then think about how you can fill those gaps.

TRENDS IN GIS
3D:  We live in a 3D world so it makes sense that we should have 3D analytics.  For many years we had 3D visualization, but being able to analyze in 3D is transformational and insightful.  ArcGIS Reality.

GEODESIGN

The joining of BIM-CAD-GIS.   This is essential that we map things inside and outside of structures to build resiliency models for a community, a campus, a medical center.  

TRENDS IN GIS

IoT enabled real time data:  People want to, need to, map things in real time or as close to real time as possible.  We live on a dynamic planet, where real property, lands, and lives are at stake.  Web GIS:  I mentioned this earlier – last year, raster analysis in ArcGIS Online.  This year – AI-powered feature extraction.  AI and ML.  1000 AI powered tools coming to ArcGIS, some already there.  Transforming GIS workflows and maybe finally getting beyond the toolbox approach that is powerful but off-putting to some.  Feature extraction, Survey123 already there.  But – caution needed – do you understand what is in these AI powered tools? 

GIS HAS CHANGED

GIS has not only endured every major hardware, societal, and software change, but it has THRIVED through each of them.  What are the  implications of these 5 trends for education?  What must we teach, when must we teach it? 

ACCIDENTS

3D Hex Bins.   What could we do before with GIS vs what we can do now. 

AR – GIS  The future is now!

IDAHO HIGHLIGHTS

Idaho is the perfect place in which to move the frontiers of GIS forward.  Why?  There are real leaders in Wyoming:  YOU ALL!  USTEDES!  VOUS!   You are helping people see the world in new ways. 

GEOTECHNOLOGIES:  ESSENTIAL FOR LEARNING, ESSENTIAL FOR THE PLANET
Why should you care about GIS education?

Why should you, the busy GIS professional that you are, care about what is happening in GIS education and why you should support it? 

• You have kids, or you know people with kids, and you care about them.
• You were a kid once and you remember what frustrations and triumphs you had in your own school journey.
• You have an alma mater university, tribal or community college, or school that you care about.
• You have a neighborhood school that you are interested in partnering with.
• You care about getting passionate and wonderful employees hired at your organization.
• You care about the future of the geospatial industry and the people in it.
• You care about the future of our planet!

GIS has existed for nearly 60 years.  Within a span of 2 years you had:  The Canadian Land Inventory – eh! – and Roger Tomlinson and the birth of GIS.  Woodstock (The NY State Thruway is closed, man!).  The founding of a little company with $1200 and 2 college kids named Jack and Laura Dangermond founded Esri. 

CLASSROOM

Since the inception of GIS, people have wanted to learn more about GIS.  Because this, the development of educational resources—lessons, tutorials, books, and other ways to learn about GIS, has been occurring for nearly 60 years as well.   Educational institutions (schools, community, technical, and tribal colleges, and universities) have long partnered with GIS software companies, nonprofit organizations, professional associations, and government agencies to advance the teaching and learning surrounding GIS.  Beginning in the 1980s, GIS has steadily advanced at all levels in education from primary and secondary schools, to colleges and universities.  Today, GIS is taught in nearly every university and college in the world.  It is taught in individual courses, certificate programs, degree programs, and in hybrid, face-to-face, and fully online environments.  It is also used as a key research tool and in campus facility administration.  It underlies ALL SCIENCE.

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
The world of Education is changing:  I think the days of thinking “this university or college has always been here and it always will be” are over.  Some geography departments have closed such as at Vancouver Island University.  Some entire colleges have closed; I visit 35 campuses a year and 1 I visited last year is at 10,000 students; they were at 17,000 in 2015.  Teaching is hard – teaching inquiry is harder; teaching with a professional tool such as GIS is harder still – though I believe, infinitely worth it.  Longstanding tension exists between higher educators who say “we are not here to provide tech training”, we are here to create thinkers and literate citizens” vs University Administrators wanting to increase enrollment and secure outside funding.

There is competition:  You can take the Penn State or Utrecht or other programs from anywhere, anytime.  Hence:  FOCUS your GIS program. There are budget constraints and competing voices.  We still structure higher education by departments which runs counter to GIS as an interdisciplinary force.  Hence, challenges exist, but challenges also, in any societal structure, foster innovation.  A course at the University of Jacksonville is called Beautiful Maps.  I co-founded a course at the University of Denver called “Digital Earth” – the goal is to get people beyond thinking of maps as merely reference documents to analytical tools.

THE GEOGRAPHIC APPROACH
The only way GIS will grow is to embed it into other programs, so they will see it as indispensable:  The fastest educational growth today in GIS is across an increasing diversity of disciplines, including business, earth and environmental science, geography, economics, mathematics, civil engineering, computer science, health, planning, and more.  It is becoming infused in university and college programs on sustainability, climate, resiliency, and data science.  Instructors recognize the systems thinking and holistic perspectives that GIS gives students in increasingly interdisciplinary campus initiatives such as the ATLAS institute at the University of Colorado and the data science program at the University of North Carolina Charlotte.  Nearly every university highlights data literacy and data visualization in their mission statements:  Using GIS engages students in working with a large volume and wide variety of data:  Teaching ethics is opening doors, as is fine arts and communications.

DATA SCIENCE

Most people using GIS in the future are not going to come from geo/enviro/GISc, but from IT, computer science, data science.  Here is where you as the GIS community will have the opportunity to show some real leadership, providing this new wave of GIS people some context, place & space, and foundations.

MESSAGE FOR INSTRUCTORS

1. Not:  Use GIS everywhere, but:  Where in your courses/programs are you seeing less engagement, and are dissatisfied with the tools, maps, data, methods you are using? That’s where to integrate GIS.
2. Use GIS as a set of resources to support your instructional goals: Living Atlas apps, interactive data layers.
3. Use GIS to teach ethics.
4. Use GIS to teach data fluency.
5. Don’t overscript your lessons: Focus on PBL.

 

Appeal to:  Every instructor’s goals – be more engaging, helping students to care, to want to learn, and to be + change agents in society.

LAKOTA LANGUAGE

There is always a higher goal in teaching with GIS: Here, drawing attention to endangered Indigenous languages.

US K12

Even primary school instructors are using the interactive maps in ArcGIS Online in such accessible and engaging tools as the National Geographic MapMaker to teach about biomes, population change, landforms, and weather.  

MY IOT ARTICLE

My own research is on the implementation and effectiveness of GIS in education.  But it’s not just me advocating this:  The National Academy of Sciences’ Learning to Think Spatially report advocated for intentional teaching of spatial thinking often and early.

WENDY BERELSON
Also important in educational institutions is the use of GIS in administration—campus facility management, campus safety, managing alumni networks, and more:  From getting people into and out of the basketball or football stadium safely, to taking care of all of the trees on campus, managing the campus electrical and fiber optic grid, and in other ways.  GIS helps a campus save energy and costs and become a sustainable and safe place for all.

8KB COMPUTER CARD

Approaches to teaching GIS must change and are changing:  Leading with web GIS.  Advanced GIS has its place.  Do not overscript the lessons.  Please!   Project-based portfolios.  Assessing student work via video, presentations from their web mapping applications.   

SPATIAL RESERVES

There are choices that go into making and sharing these maps, because EVERYONE is now a mapmaker.  It also includes ethical discussions on: How do I know if I can trust that map?  Location privacy, copyright, and more.  What should I share? What should I not share?  That is the focus of this data blog and book, Spatial Reserves.  I thought by now, you’d realize… there ain’t no way to hide your maps online…   

CONNECTING WITH EDUCATION

What can you do to support what is happening and should happen in GIS in education?

• Serve as a “geomentor” to your local school or alma mater, where you put together a web map of data layers for an educator, to help them when they get “stuck” in a GIS workflow or lesson, and in other ways.
• Host a face-to-face or virtual GIS Day event (www.gisday.com). 
• Following the advice of YPN author Gina Girgente to join academic organizations, finding your own calling, and building your confidence in speaking to others about the value of GIS.
• Following the advice of my colleague Rosemary Boone to become a YPN Ambassador to enhance your leadership skills.
• Have your 30-second to 2-minute elevator speech ready to go, while on the bus, airplane, in a conference, or in an actual elevator, articulating what GIS is, why it matters, and why we need to be teaching with it and about it.  Use my set of elevator speeches here for some inspiration but make it your own voice, making it authentic by charting your own journey to your story.

CLASSROOM

In light of this, what are the key skills needed in the modern GIS workforce?  1.  Be curious.  Ask questions.   Ask questions that your professor is not asking you!  When you are in the workplace, you will be asking questions that your supervisor is not even asking you.  These are the valued employees.

ZEBRA MUSSELS
2.  Be able to work with data.  Now more than ever!  Who created it, why, how, when, how often is it updated.  Remember the Spatial Reserves data book and blog.

3. Know your geospatial foundations. Where are your gaps?  Use the GTCM to identify them.  Fill the gaps with:  Work with some GIS every week.  Make a map every week in a GIS.   Review the “what’s new in__ “ blogs.   Pursue certification Esri and/or GISCI, take Esri MOOCs and univ-college courses.   4.  Be adaptable and flexible.  Strive to be at the center of the IKIGAI diagram. 

DOORSTOP COMPUTER

Don’t over-focus on version x of software y.  Focus on the most important tool of all–YOUR BRAIN.  Inquiry:   GIS has always been a thinkers tool. 

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box:  You all know about John Snow.  Maybe you don’t know that after pinpointing cholera to a water-borne disease, and even identifying which pump was responsible, he  wasn’t an immediate hero:  It took the Big Stink and another cholera epidemic to change people’s minds.  Stay the course, even when the naysayers are vocalizing. 

5. Read. What are your favorite geo-GIS books?  Mine are:   The MapMakers Wife, the Map that Changed the World, and Longitude.  But–read even outside of your own discipline:  Nonfiction, novels, poetry.   

ELEVATOR

6. Foster good communication skills. Why? You will be called upon to articulate what is the value that GIS brings to the organization and even why they need to fund your position!

PHOTO JJK AS CHILD

What brought you to this moment?   A book, a field trip, a family member, a vacation, your upbringing.   

MOTEL
In my case it was growing up in a motel that my parents owned, learning that hard work is honorable, listening to the hotel guests’ tales of places far and near, exploring the buttes and mesas of western Colorado, and reading the book Last Great Auk.  Connect with the community and what we all have in common, but treasure the uniqueness of your own journey – embrace it.   Promote it as you pursue new opportunities.

INITIAL POINT

The world needs you.  Stay the course, everyone!  So you can sing, I’ve mapped each, and every highway, oh, no, much more than this, I’ve mapped it my way.

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