Quick Links
- What is a Collaborative Map?
- What is GIS?
- In what ways can participation in this project benefit student learning?
- In what ways is this project connected to Manitoba curriculum?
- What do I do if I am interested in participating in this project?
We are excited to invite Manitoba K-12 students and their teachers to be part of “Discovering our Diversity through GIS”, a Collaborative Mapping Project using ArcGIS Online and the Collector for ArcGIS app. Students from around the province can add to the Collaborative Map what they have learned about a landmark of significance in their community through their research, through photos and links to supporting websites. The completed Collaborative Map of Manitoba will highlight the diversity in our province as students share the significance of local community landmarks.
GIS is a geographic information system which lets you visualize, question, analyze, and interpret data to understand relationships, patterns, and trends through digital mapping.
GIS Day will be celebrated this year on Wednesday, November 16th, but students and teachers are encouraged to begin this project now. It is hoped that the Collaborative Map will be well underway and ready for public viewing by mid-December 2016. Teachers and students can continue to submit their contributions to the map throughout the 2016-17 school year.
In what ways can participation in this project benefit student learning?
The goals of this province wide project are to:
- Share the diverse and unique characteristics of one or more significant landmarks within one’s community.
- Learn more about GIS, and use the ArcGIS online mapping tools provided by Esri Canada.
Technology, in this online collaborative mapping project and accompanying apps, offers many benefits:
- engaging students in the learning
- providing students with opportunities to collaborate with peers and with members of their community
- providing students with opportunities to think critically in authentic situations
- providing a 21st century medium by which students can communicate and share the evidence of their learning to a broad audience.
In what ways is this project connected to Manitoba curriculum?
While technology offers several benefits, it is only truly effective when connected to the deeper understandings as shaped by Manitoba Curriculum and to both the learning strengths and needs of one’s students. While at first glance the project may appear to be best connected with the K-12 Social Studies curricula, it can also be connected, for example, to the enduring understandings and learning outcomes in the Sciences, Languages and in the Arts.
In this project the deep learning is that diversity in Manitoba is something that can be discovered, uncovered and honoured.
In addition, some other understandings that support this deep learning could include:
- Diversity is a strength; our ability to adopt, adapt and improve may strengthen our communities.
- Manitoba communities are both unique and diverse.
- Community landmarks are an important means of expressing this diversity.
- Researching and creating a digital map of these significant landmarks is a way to learn more about one’s community and to share what is learned with others in Manitoba.
- To create the digital map, collaboration amongst teachers and students supports both the research and the recording of what has been learned in the Collector App.
To engage students in the research of their community landmark of significance, the following questions of inquiry may guide student thinking and discussions.
- What is diversity? In what ways does diversity benefit all of us?
- What is a landmark? (A monument, a statue, a building, a structure, visual art, a park or a natural feature, other?)
- What is a significant landmark in one’s community? In what ways might it be significant, culturally, historically, socially, environmentally, economically, politically and/or artistically?
- How can a digital/online map be used to share what has been learned with others?
- How might collaboration with others support the learning that diversity is a strength?
All students and teachers will be invited and encouraged to submit their data in the language of their learning, whether it is French, English, Cree, German, Ukrainian, etc. This also supports the understanding of diversity within our province. All the students’ work will still be on one map and the diversity of languages will also encourage teachers and students to find ways to learn more about another culture as they seek to translate what is submitted.
It is hoped that this project will provide an engaging and yet practical way for students and their teachers to learn more about their community and ArcGIS online mapping.
What do I do if I am interested in participating in this project?
There are two ways to proceed:
- Attend a workshop that explains the project in more detail and acquire basic skills in ArcGIS Online and the Collector for ArcGIS app for smartphones and tablets.
- Register for one of the following workshops:
- If you don’t already have one, apply for a free ArcGIS Online account (divisional email required).
- Once you have completed the above workshop, register your school & class to participate in this project by completing an online survey.
- I would like to participate in this project as part of a GIS Day 2016 Event.
- My students and/or I already have MBED ArcGIS Online accounts and would like to proceed on our own.
- Please download this document for mapping instructions.
- My students and/or I don’t have MBED ArcGIS Online accounts but would still like to participate by providing the data for someone else to put on the map.
- Please download this document for data gathering instructions.
- My students and/or I already have MBED ArcGIS Online accounts and would like to proceed on our own.