Why today is the ideal time to be a student
10 reasons and why it all matters.
1. Spatial Issues are Relevant!
The key 21st Century issues that people, communities, and societies are facing are all geographic or spatial in nature: Climate, biodiversity, natural hazards, equity, political instability, energy, natural resources, sustainable development, cities, tourism, and agriculture, livable cities, a vibrant economy, water quality and quantity, and others, ?including all of the UN SDGs.? As a 21st Century student, gaining an interdisciplinary set of perspectives, content knowledge, and skills lets you engage with all of the major issues of our world. What's where, why is it there, and why should we care? These are 3 core questions to geography and spatial thinking. Why should we care about sustainable agriculture, energy, natural hazards, population change, climate, or water? Quite simply, because they affect our everyday lives and because they are critical to our planet's future.
2. You can get a job!
The geographic perspective gives you superpowers! The skills you gain through GIS and geography courses are increasingly in demand in the workplace. Businesses (such as?Esri ?and our?partners?), government agencies (such as ?USGS ?and NOAA?), academic institutions (such as?Michigan State ?and?Carroll University?), and nonprofits (such as?The Nature Conservancy?) hire people who have the ability to ask good questions and solve problems. Geography provides you with 3 legs of a geoliteracy stool: Content knowledge, communications and geo-technology skills, and perspectives: Holistic thinking, systems thinking, critical thinking, and spatial thinking.
For an example of making a difference with GIS, on a real issue affecting people, families, and communities, see analyzing traffic accidents in space and time: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=9a27635635c940539b96fb5ef954e4d5
3. Be a change agent!
By applying your geographic knowledge and perspectives, you can solve problems and become a change agent in our world. Your abilities will be a force for positive change in your community, region, country, and beyond.
Why are right whales dying in the Gulf of St Lawrence? I love this story map created by a student studying an important issue in part because the student presents a SOLUTION to the problem, at the end of the story map:
4. You can dig into some big awesome data.
A large component of our data-rich world is mappable data--satellite and UAV (drone) imagery, 3D maps of ocean currents, real-time wildfires and streamflow, earthquakes (see last 30 days of earthquakes below), population change, and much more. As a geography student, you can access open data portals to unlock a great volume of map, data, and analysis tools. Data repositories such as the ?ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World?, ?ArcGIS Hub sites?, and?elsewhere? are online and at your fingertips. But you are not limited to examining what others have created: You can create data yourself! Do this via spreadsheets, your own photographs and data logs, using field collection tools, fitness apps, and by many other means. Why do this? By mapping and analyzing your data and data from others, you can make sense of our world and can consider how to make the world more resilient and sustainable.
5. You can use cool, fascinating technology to explore your world and create maps and apps.
These tools and data have become a sort of nervous system of Planet Earth and can help you understand the current status of hazards, air quality, and many more phenomena.
Use the Wayback imagery app? to examine changes in urban areas, glaciers, agriculture, coastal erosion, and other phenomena, worldwide.
Use the?The Water Balance App? to examine changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration in your location or halfway around the world over the past 20 years.
You can share your findings via your own maps and apps using these same tools such as ArcGIS Online maps, ?story maps?, infographics, and dashboards, with a group of fellow students, your school or university, or even with the entire world!
Examine Landforms' Greatest Hits, here: ?https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/df61cc5de60d4d369831c759f32f7057?
领英推荐
Examine the USA County Health rankings here: ?https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=b103fc10c7524cecb17e5f3bbc7205f5?
Examine the USA tornado tracks, here: ?https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=e75412d18bdc469dbf89bf7e929475cc?
6. You can collect data in the field!
Like to get outside and explore? Do it! Then map and study the results of what you collect out there. ?How walkable is your community?? is my example of connecting four things: Interactive maps, story maps, dashboards, and field surveys. These are all a part of the ArcGIS platform that your school, college, or university probably already has access to.
You can use these same techniques and tools such as Survey123, QuickCapture, iNaturalist, and others, some coupled with field probes such as those from ?Pasco?, to study noise, pedestrian and vehicle counts, water quality, weather, graffiti, sustainable solutions in the community (such as ?this on a university campus?), historical structures, public art, and much more, in your very own community.
7. You can connect to wider societal issues.
It's never just about the tools, but what the societal issues are surrounding those tools and data sets. Location are inherently tied to societal issues. Check out the? Spatial Reserves data book and blog? to uncover societal issues of ethics, copyright, location privacy, data quality in short, thoughtful essays tied to engaging activities. Geotechnologies are a set of tools being used for good in the world. With the superpowers that geotechnologies gives you, you need to be thoughtful and careful about the maps?and visualizations (such as?dashboards ?and?story maps?) that you create that could be shared with thousands of people. There are plenty of maps with errors, misleading classification methods, symbology, or locations, or contain omissions. Maps and mapped data are useful but need to be examined critically.
8. You can be a lifelong learner!
Geography and GIS are lifelong endeavors - an adventure and a journey! ?GeoInquiries?, Learn ArcGIS?, regional Centers for Geography Education?,?free online courses?, and many other resources for you to learn about geographic content, tools, and interactive maps and apps.
9. You can take action!
Geography is not just memorizing a bunch of facts and information: It is about taking action about what you have investigated. Asking a geographic question, gathering data, assessing data, analyzing the data, and presenting that information often leads, and should lead, to taking action. Through story maps and other web mapping applications, you can take action and encourage others to care and to take action as well.
What action? It could be about water quality, litter, invasive weeds, urban greenways and trails, dangerous intersections, natural hazards, climate, equity, energy, food sustainability, or anything else in your community, region, country, or world. The Esri Education Community Space is one community worthy of engagement: ?https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/bg-p/education-blog.
10. Geography and the geographic perspective will always be important and needed.
We inhabit a dynamic planet. We will always be confronted with change from natural forces and also from the 8 billion people inhabiting the planet and making changes. ?Read about and listen to some of the people making a difference in geography?. Geographic skills, content, and tools will always be important to grapple with these changes on, above, and below our Earth's surface. And beyond the Earth: Geography is also important as we explore other moons and planets. Check out this Mars mapping tool that was created in part by geographers!
Explore Mars
For more, see: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/accdeca700664195b4db58a316b258d2 Why today is the ideal time to be a student - My thoughts with geospatial connections--with embedded maps and apps for you to explore even beyond this essay, and this book Interpreting Our World that illustrates how 100 discoveries revolutionized geography and the world.
GISer | Carto Nerd | Urban Exploerer
7 个月Glad to see John in the cover??