The search bar. Type any address here and press Enter to fly the map to that location from wherever it currently is.
The zoom controls. The plus button zooms in. The minus button zooms out. Touch screens can pinch to zoom.
Enter your home address in the search bar (top left) and press Enter. Zoom in using the plus button (bottom right) until you can see your own roof clearly.
Some things to look for:
Enter your school name and suburb in the search bar and press Enter. Zoom in until the school grounds are clearly visible.
Some things to look for:
Enter a workplace address in the search bar and press Enter. Zoom in to explore the site from above.
Some things to look for:
The three activities are a starting point, not a limit. Once students are confident with the search bar and zoom controls, they can look up any address they are curious about: a grandparent's house in another town, a sports stadium, a beach they have visited, or a place they have heard about in the news.
Encourage students to zoom out gradually from a familiar location and notice what surrounds it. What is between the school and the nearest park? What is on the other side of the main road? What happens to the green space as the view pulls back to the whole town?
ArcGIS MapMaker includes tools for measuring distances and calculating the surface area of features visible on the satellite image. Before using these tools, ask students to make a physical estimate first: How far do you think it is from school to the park? How big do you think the school grounds are? The gap between estimate and measurement is where the genuine learning lives. Measuring a polygon on a screen is a skill exercise; measuring something you have already predicted or walked is a real encounter with scale and proportion.
Before any outdoor visit, look up the destination on the map. Find the stream before the macroinvertebrate study. Measure the beach footprint before the marine environment visit. Estimate the distance from the school gate to the sampling site before you walk it. After the visit, return to the map and notice what the satellite image could and could not tell you that being there in person could. This predict-observe-measure-compare cycle is the engine of the companion protocol: ArcGIS as an Outdoor Learning Companion.
These prompts build on what students actually saw when they searched their house, school, and a workplace. Students have looked at real places they know from an unfamiliar angle. The prompts use that genuine encounter as the starting point for AI dialogue. The map observation is what gives the AI conversation meaning.
Tell a gen AI chatbot what you found when you looked at your house from above: "I could see [things]. Can you tell me what some of those things are for?" Listen to the answer. Does it match what you already know?
Find something on the map that you did not expect or could not quite identify. Ask a gen AI chatbot: "I was looking at my school from above and I noticed something that looks like [description]. What do you think it is and what is it used for?"
Ask a gen AI chatbot: "My house is in [suburb or town name]. What do you think this area looked like before people built houses here? What might have been growing or living here?" Compare what the AI says to what you know about your area.
Before you look at the map, guess how far it is from your house to your school. Then use the map to measure it. Tell a gen AI chatbot your guess and the real answer. Ask: "Why do people often get distances wrong when they are estimating from memory?" Does the AI's answer match your experience?
Tell a gen AI chatbot what you saw around your school: buildings, courts, fields, paths, gardens. Then ask: "Why do schools usually have these kinds of spaces, and why are they positioned the way they are?" Compare the AI's answer to the actual layout you saw on the map.
Look at your neighbourhood on the map and estimate how much of the area is green space compared to buildings and roads. Then ask a gen AI chatbot: "What does the amount of green space in a neighbourhood tell us about what it is like to live there?" Evaluate whether the AI's answer matches your neighbourhood.
Ask a gen AI chatbot about the history of the land your neighbourhood sits on: "What was this area used for before the houses were built, and who lived or worked here?" Check anything the AI tells you against other sources your teacher suggests.
Choose two places on the map and estimate which one has more green space. Then use the area tool to measure both and check your estimate. Tell a gen AI chatbot your results and ask: "Why does estimating area by eye tend to mislead us?" Evaluate whether you think the AI's explanation is right.
From the map, identify the different types of land use visible in your neighbourhood: residential, commercial, recreational, industrial, open space. Describe what you saw to a gen AI chatbot and ask: "Why do urban planners typically arrange these land uses in particular ways relative to each other?"
Search two locations with noticeably different appearances on the map. Describe both to a gen AI chatbot and ask: "What factors typically explain why two neighbourhoods in the same city look so different from above?" Assess whether the AI's explanation fits what you actually observed.
Ask a gen AI chatbot: "What are the limitations of using satellite imagery as data? What can it not capture that a person visiting the same place would notice?" Then apply this to somewhere you know well from the map. What does the AI miss that you know from being there?
Choose a question your class could investigate using the map's distance and area tools: which local park has the most usable green space per student, how far most students travel to school, or how much of your suburb is impervious surface. Ask a gen AI chatbot to help you design the method. Then evaluate whether the method it suggests is actually achievable with the map tools you have.
| Level | Years 0–3 | Years 4–6 | Years 7–8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Student successfully searches an address and zooms in to find a recognisable location. Can point to at least one feature they identified: a car, a pool, a playground, or their own roof. | Student navigates to all three activity locations and identifies at least two specific features at each. Can name each feature and state what it is used for. | Student navigates to multiple locations including at least one chosen independently. Describes the arrangement of features at each site using accurate vocabulary: car park, boundary, green space, rooftop, sports court. |
| 2 | Student names several features they found across different locations and can explain in simple terms why each looks the way it does from above. Understands that the image shows a real place, not a drawing. | Student identifies different types of land use visible across the locations they explored and can explain in their own words why a school, a house, and a workplace look different from a satellite view. | Student describes the spatial patterns they observed across multiple locations and proposes a reason for each: why the school fields are at one end of the grounds, why the car park is positioned where it is, why certain roads are wider than others. |
| 3 | Student asks a gen AI chatbot about something they saw on the map and compares the AI's response to what they already know. Can say whether the AI's answer made sense or surprised them. | Student uses a gen AI chatbot to investigate a question raised by the map and evaluates the AI's answer against what they observed. Can identify at least one point where the AI's explanation did or did not match the map evidence. | Student uses a gen AI chatbot to analyse land use or spatial patterns they observed, critically evaluates the quality of the response, and identifies at least one claim they would want to verify using another source. |
| 4 | Student names one thing the map showed them that they had never noticed about a familiar place, and one thing the map could not tell them that they only know because they have been there in person. | Student can explain the difference between what a satellite map reveals (shape, size, position, surface features) and what it cannot show: what a place sounds like, how busy it feels, or what has changed since the image was taken. | Student reflects on satellite imagery as a data source: what it captures, how current it may or may not be, what it cannot represent, and what additional information a researcher or planner would need alongside it to make decisions. |
| 5 | Student generates at least one question they want to investigate using the map: a place they want to find, a feature they want to look at more closely, or somewhere they want to check before an upcoming school trip. Makes a prediction about distance or size before measuring. | Student identifies a location or question they want to explore further, makes an estimate of a distance or area before measuring it on the map, and can explain what the gap between estimate and measurement tells them. Connects the map to a real place they plan to visit. | Student designs a map based inquiry using the distance or area tools: selects a question, makes predictions, measures evidence across multiple locations, and presents a conclusion. Can articulate what further investigation on the ground would add to what the map alone provided. |