Mapping Workshop Overview

Today we will use a free mapping platform called Google My Maps to create collaborative, easily shared maps of information about our communities. We will begin with a brief demonstration using the real world example of a My Maps used by the Navajo Tourism Department and a My Maps created for the  case study presented by Ted Jojola of the Red Water Pond Community. You will then be given 1 1/2 hours to build your own map, followed by an opportunity for participants to share their maps.

Google My Maps is a lightweight platform for creating maps that can be embedded in your website and shared with your community. It is a user-friendly way to communicate geospatial information used in Indigenous Planning and Brownfields community outreach. You can embed photos, links, YouTubes, and text in the points, lines and polygons that you create. You can also import data from spreadsheets to create map layers. There are two ways in which you can import map layers from ArcGIS and other GIS software; you can export data as KML files from GIS software to import into My Maps, or you can import SHP files from GIS into Google Earth Pro and save them as KML for use in My Maps.

There is a great deal of publicly available geospatial data that you can download from governmental and university websites for use in My Maps. You will find examples in the case study below and suggestions for your own use on the hands-on activity page. Files will need to have addresses, Latitude and Longitude, or other appropriate spatial data in order to be mapped. There are also limits to the size of files that you can use, which will be covered in the instructions for the activity. Despite these limitations, you will find that My Maps is a fast, easy way to share a great deal of geospatial information in an attractive, engaging format.

https://gispub.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Region9/Navajo_Nation_Administrative_Boundaries/MapServer/generateKml     

 https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/carto-boundary-file.html

http://www.navajohs.org/our-centers.aspx 

https://edg.epa.gov/metadata/catalog/search/resource/details.page?uuid=%7B69BB4A0D-661E-422C-A2AA-E3BCB0DD555F%7D  SFD1602304_NavajoNationAUM.gdb

https://edg.epa.gov/EPADataCommons/public/R9/ 

https://geopub.epa.gov/myem/efmap/