Modern GIS for Higher Education

Build a modern curriculum for GIS degrees

Resources for modern GIS and geospatial AI education

Young adult students with laptops and tablets sitting in a lecture hall and smiling

Prepare students for the geospatial workforce

Teach GIS as it is practiced today

A modern GIS curriculum connects foundational geographic thinking with current technical workflows in data management, mapping, spatial analysis, imagery, field operations, and geospatial artificial intelligence.

Connect learning to real work by giving students experiences they will encounter in government, business, science, and nonprofit work. Use courses and tutorials to promote lifelong learning and professional development, updating your own skills to bring current practices into introductory and advanced GIS courses.

 

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Teach modern GIS as a connected system

Modern GIS connects people, authoritative data, and repeatable processes. Teaching these parts together helps students understand how GIS supports decisions across an organization.

  • Capabilities

    Explore core concepts of GIS, such as data management, mapping, spatial analysis, imagery, sharing, and field operations. Show how geospatial AI can automate data extraction, make predictions, and support analysis.

  • People

    Help students develop skills in understanding business needs, designing, building, and operating effective systems. Explore appropriate uses of AI assistants and agents balanced with human judgement.

  • Workflows

    Teach students to design, document, and evaluate workflows from data collection through communication. Include examples of how AI tools and assistants can accelerate workflows.

  • Technology infrastructure

    Explain how cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments support secure access, collaboration, computing, and governance. Connect infrastructure choices to the scale, capacity planning, and elasticity of the work.

  • Software

    Teach students to choose tools based on the geographic question, data, audience, and workflow. Then, connect desktop, web, mobile, and developer technologies as needed.

  • Data

    Guide students to assess data quality, provenance, metadata, access, and maintenance. Explain that reliable geospatial artificial intelligence depends on well-governed, representative data and careful validation.

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Core concepts of a modern GIS curriculum

Use these tutorials, blogs, books, and more to build a modern GIS curriculum, from introductory GIS and data management to spatial analysis, imagery, and mobile workflows.

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CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORIES

See how educators use GIS to modernize curricula

Additional resources

Modern GIS education evolves with technology and practice. Use these resources to strengthen your GIS curriculum and connect classroom instruction with current workflows.

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Esri Community

Join conversations about GIS in education. Post your questions, read blogs, collaborate, and learn from peers.

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Events

Join us for education-focused events to discover new insights, best practices, and the latest advancements in GIS technology.

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Educators

Get more resources and best practices curated especially for GIS educators.

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Frequently asked questions

Modern GIS is a system and connected approach to understanding and acting on location-based information. It brings together mapping and analysis capabilities, software, authoritative data, technology, people, and workflows that fulfill specific needs.

In higher education, a modern GIS curriculum teaches these parts as a system rather than as isolated software skills. Students learn to:

  • Frame geographic questions
  • Manage data
  • Select methods
  • Evaluate results
  • Share useful information

Geospatial artificial intelligence extends this foundation with AI tools and models that can extract information, detect patterns, make predictions, and forecast change. AI assistants can also help with defined tasks. Students still need to question inputs, validate outputs, document methods, and apply geographic and subject-matter judgment.

Start with the GIS Fundamentals Learning Plan in Esri Academy for self-paced learning or use modules from the UCSB Guide to support an introductory GIS course.

To learn geospatial artificial intelligence, begin with the geographic problem and the data needed to study it. Then explore how AI tools and models in ArcGIS support tasks such as:

  • Extracting features from imagery and text
  • Detecting patterns
  • Classifying data
  • Predicting outcomes
  • Forecasting change

Use the higher education e-Learning guide to move from foundational concepts to applied geospatial AI workflows, and include data quality, ethics, transparency, and human review in every assignment.

GIS can be applicable to any industry. A GIS degree can support careers in government, business, science, conservation, public safety, planning, health, utilities, transportation, and other fields.

Strong GIS degree programs combine:

  • Geographic thinking
  • Data management
  • Spatial analysis
  • Communication
  • Experience with modern GIS workflows, including responsible uses of geospatial artificial intelligence

Review the Esri industry index; all of them provide excellent employment opportunities.

Help is available

Fill out the form and an Esri education team member will contact you to assist in modernizing your program or curriculum.