Ideas and Resources

The team at ESRI (UK) have identified a list of activities split into different age groups.  These are just ideas and you are welcome to go off and do your own thing!

Primary

Ages 4 – 8

• Great ideas for activities for younger children can be found on the GISDay.com website. Examples include:

1. Run a treasure hunt in the school grounds (weather dependent). Get the children to think about the location of things in relation to others. We can provide you with freebies to hide.
2. Colouring In - Get GIS Day colouring pages from here:
   Colouring in page 1 & Colouring in page 2
3. Map Hats exercise - download the lesson plan and images here
4. World Map Jigsaw - plot out, laminate and cut up the map here
5. A holiday to the Polar Regions - please visit the National geographic website

Ages 8 -10     

• Virtual World from Harper Collins - The Virtual World CD-ROM provides a range of fully interactive atlas and mapping activities to support the teaching of Geography at Key Stage 2. If you would like to request one of our special copies of this product, please contact abaker@esriuk.com These will be allocated on a first first serve basis and have a 3 month licence.
• Interpretation of the World - Take part in our competition. More information is available here

Secondary

Ages 11 – 14

• Epidemic Exercise using ArcReader - Download ArcReader, free software, and get your students to complete the Epidemic activity which is based around the London cholera outbreak in September 1854 and the work of John Snow in deducing that the disease spread through contaminated drinking water - Click here to dowload (Due to large file sizes please select the save option)
• BGS Britain Beneath our Feet CD - this atlas gives a brief introduction to the wealth of digital data, information and knowledge that the British Geological Survey holds on the land beneath our feet. Use this resource to show children about the geology of our planet. Please request this resource if required
• Cholera Mapping Video - play this video to see how mapping helped in stopping the spread of cholera in London - click here to link to the video
• Route to School Exercise - More information is available here
• See a teacher in Kent using GIS in the classroom in a clip from teachers TV - click here to go to the website
• To play some interactive games on your computer / whiteboard please try this: http://www.mapmsg.com/games/statetris/
  Good luck!

Ages 14 – 18

• What is GIS ppt  - Click here to view this presentation and click here for the Ordnance Survey wmv which accompanies this presentation
• What is GIS movie - click here to download this movie
• Careers Advice (linking into RGS Ambassadors programme) - This powerpoint presentation will discuss what careers children can go into with a geography background. Click here to view presentation
• To view information from the Ambassadors Programme where young graduates have been interviewed to ask them about their career using geography, the skills they have acquired and how their job relates to their geographical background, please click here
• Graduates from the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow have written blogs decribing their careers. To view click here
• GIS Exercise - There are various teaching resources available which you can download to use in a GIS - please go to www.esriuk.com/teachingresources
• Crime Mapping Video - play this video to see how GIS helps in the mapping and analysis of crime

There are also a host of ideas and activities listed on the GISDay.com website

FREE Mapping Tools

AEJEE - ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education (AEJEE) is a downloadable, lightweight GIS tool for exploring geographic data. You can find out more and download it here

ArcGIS Explorer - ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) is a Windows application that displays digital globes from ArcGIS Server, ArcIMS, Web Mapping Services, or a variety of local data types. To find out more and download please click here

There are many lesson plans available for both of the above mapping tools. To find out suitable please visit the ArcLessons webpages here

FREE Data

ESRI (UK) has collated various datasets that are available for you to use for GIS Day. You can access these through ArcView or ArcGIS Explorer.

In ArcView use ArcCatalog to connect to the ArcGIS service by clicking Add ArcGIS Server.

Connection details:

Server URL: http://gisday.esriuk.com/gisday/services

Username: demo

Password: demo

In ArcGIS Explorer, select Open, and select Servers. Change the Show of Type to Map and Globe Services, then click on Create new connection: ArcGIS Server. Then complete the dialog box with the above connection information.