K-12 Lessons and Tutorials
A prime focus for ESRI Canada's K-12 program is supporting teachers. A variety of lessons, tutorials, and other support materials have been created to assist teachers in the infusion of GIS in the classroom. A series of topic-based lessons, tutorials, and PowerPoint presentations are available for free for download from the K-12 website. The step-by-step instructions in the lessons allow teachers to concentrate on teaching geographic concepts and begin using the software in their classrooms right away. The topics include Agriculture, Forest Fires, Health Care, Glaciation, and Settlement, and the lessons make use of the data that is provided on the ArcCanada CD dataset.

The updated lessons and tutorials for ArcView 9.x will support teachers in the migration from ArcView 3.x to 9.x. Updated lessons include: Migrating from ArcView 3.x to ArcView 9.x, K-12 Quick Start for ArcView 9.x, Integrating GIS and GPS, and using ArcView to teach students about latitude, longitude, map projections, and more. The new K-12 lessons and tutorials are available on the K-12 website:

Lessons: www.esricanada.com/teachingmaterials/lessons
Tutorials: www.esricanada.com/teachingmaterials/tutorials

GIS Resources for Grades 7 & 8, Lesson and Data CD
ESRI Canada is pleased to announce a new resource package designed to help grade 7 and 8 teachers enhance their geography and history curriculum using GIS technology. GIS Resources for Grades 7 & 8 is a CD-ROM containing lessons, data, and resources and allows teachers to explore key curriculum concepts with students in an interactive and exciting way. The package includes ten lessons that use ArcView 3.x software, and one web-based lesson to introduce students to career options related to GIS. Each lesson includes the necessary data, teacher resources, and student resources. Lesson topics include: Discovering Earthquakes, Finding Your Place: Canada, Population Characteristics: Where and How People Live, Patterns of Human Settlement, and many more.

Each lesson is comprised of 3 folders: data, teacher resources, and student resources.

•  The data folder contains the data required for the lesson.
     
• The teacher resources folder contains evaluation rubrics, an answer sheet, and Teacher's Guide. The Teacher's Guide provides general background information on the topic, the lesson objective, specific curriculum tie-ins, additional resources, and some background information on the data.
      
• The student resources folder contains a blank answer sheet and the student instructions.

About ESRI Canada:
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. We distribute the world's leading GIS software solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions we have established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 125 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. We are leaders in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including local government, utilities, public safety and defence, business demographics, education, natural resources, and transportation. ESRI Canada has thirteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.esricanada.com/ or call 1-800-447-9778.

Media Contacts:
Colleen Raymond
Education Industry Manager
ESRI Canada
T: 416-386-6444
E: craymond@esricanada.com
W: http://www.esricanada.com/