This session highlights how geospatial storytelling transforms learning, research, and design. Explore how students use ArcGIS StoryMaps to communicate people–place relationships, how GIS supports coastal landscape design and digital twin storytelling, and how real-world kelp restoration data becomes an interactive classroom experience. Presenters share curriculum approaches and examples that demonstrate how maps and narratives empower students to explore, analyze, and communicate complex environmental stories.
Detailed Agenda
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The Power of Geospatial Storytelling: Communicating People–Place Relationships
Presentations
- Using ArcGIS StoryMaps to Communicate People–Place RelationshipsThrough an undergraduate & graduate student course in Environmental Communication, students learn the power of geospatial storytelling. Students explore their own lived experiences & sense of place through reflective exercises, then apply those insights to communicate research-based environmental stories. They visualize social and ecological dimensions of issues like benthic ecology, radon pollution, & 3D printed houses. This presentation will highlight course structure, student examples, & assessment strategies that showcase how ArcGIS StoryMaps can be used for reflexive spatial storytelling.
, Engagement Specialist, Louisiana Sea Grant
- Global Climate Geodesign CompetitionThe inaugural 2026 Global Climate Geodesign Competition (GCGC) celebrates geospatial climate plans. Here International Geodesign Collaboration (IGC) universities can apply the result of climate planning work developed with Esri support at UMN, LISD and USC. We have combined their efforts in an evolving system delivering and evaluating spatial climate actions that are proven to be most effective in halting climate change. We hope to have these used in academic settings around the world, but also among the 195 countries committed to the Paris Agreement.
, Professor, LISD
, Director, Minnesota Design Center, University of Minnesota
- Mapping to Design: Teaching Adaptation of Coastal Landscapes with GISDesigning resilient coastal landscapes is a three-dimensional challenge. This session showcases how geospatial tools are integrated in the design process within the curriculum of Harvard's Landscape Architecture program. Learn how designers move from ‘reading’ coastal landscapes through flood models, 3D analysis, and simulation in ArcGIS Pro, to ‘writing’ it—bringing altered environments back into GIS, ultimately sharing design proposals as interactive digital twins through Story Maps.
, Design Critic, Harvard Graduate School of Design
- Kelp Restoration from the Ocean Floor to the Classroom Door Using ArcGIS OnlineSharing real-world scientific data with students can be challenging, but ArcGIS Online provides an ideal platform for transforming complex kelp restoration datasets into engaging, interactive learning experiences. This project integrates diverse data sources—drone imagery, seafloor bathymetry, diver-collected kelp data, and video transects—into ArcGIS Online and invites students to visualize, explore, and analyze kelp forest recovery on Catalina Island. Students can investigate spatial patterns in kelp recruitment, develop hypotheses, or create their own kelp forest map projects.
, Marine Conservation Director, Catalina Island Marine Institute
Session Type: Lightning Talks
Session Level: All Attendees
Access Type: In-Person
Topic: Teaching and Learning
Esri Products: ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS StoryMaps
Industry: Higher Education
Keywords: Environmental communication, design education, oceans, restoration
