THE ASSESSMENT OF FIELD SKILLS USING ESRI STORY MAPS

Within many geoscience programs, students taking their first field course must learn to properly identify and document geological features which includes taking proper field notes and photographs. Evaluation of field interpretations, notes, and photographs comprises an assessment of their accuracy, neatness, and comprehensiveness. The ESRI Story Maps platform provides an effective method of evaluating several essential aspects of these field skills. ESRI Story Maps are desktop and mobile enabled web map applications built using ESRI’s ArcGIS Online platform.

After an environmental geoscience field course in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, students published their app which combined interactive maps of important landform features they documented along with multiple linked field photographs and proper annotations. The advantage for instructors of having students use the Story Map medium to communicate learning was that errors in the mapping of field locations were easily detected. In addition, it was simple to navigate through the linked field photographs to verify that all the essential components of a field photo (such as an item for scale) and its caption were included. The single challenge for the instructor using this non-traditional technology in the evaluation of field skills related to giving specific feedback to students. In order to resolve this issue, the instructor’s assessment was supported with explicit examples via the compilation of marked up screen shots.