Story Map

The Hidden Cost of Suspension

The Hidden Cost of SuspensionAs part of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) new public awareness campaign, #RethinkDiscipline, Blue Raster launched The Hidden Cost of Suspension story map in partnership with Sanametrix. Since 2011, the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice have collected data on suspensions, expulsions, and other practices that remove students from instruction.

To make their data comprehensible at a glance by decision makers and the public, ED turned to Blue Raster to create a series of maps to be shared on social media. Through this story map, the public can better understand the prevalence of out-of-school suspensions in their communities.
The application was developed using Esri’s side accordion story map template that allows users to step through three maps.


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“Creating and sustaining safe, supportive schools is absolutely essential to ensuring students can engage in the rich learning experiences they need for success in college, work and life – that’s why rethinking school discipline is critical to boosting student achievement and improving school outcomes,” 

-Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

This story map was highlighted in the articles below:

Bear Basics – New Portal Into the World of Bears

Blue Raster has long recognized the importance of putting exploration tools into the hands of science enthusiasts. So we were excited to collaborate on a joint project with Bear Trust International, a non-profit dedicated to conservation education.

Bears of the World Story Map

As part of their STEM program, Bear Trust asked Blue Raster to create an engaging web lesson plan rooted in bear research and ecology. Using datasets generously provided from the IUCN Red List, Blue Raster created the Bears of the World story map.

Bears of the World Story Map

Built with ArcGIS Online, the story map enables kids to learn about the eight species of bears worldwide and view their range maps.


“The folks at Blue Raster provided unparalleled customer service, expertise, and creative vision.  We are so excited about providing our interactive map to kids and the public, and we look forward to our next collaborative project with Blue Raster.”

-Dr. Melissa Reynolds-Hogland, Executive Director of Bear Trust International


Check out the story map today, and discover how its helping engage the next generation of environmental stewards.

APTA Story Map Amplifies Advocacy Message

APTA Story Map - Stand Up 4 Transportation

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) asked Blue Raster to create a story map to spread their message. According to APTA, public transit saw its highest ridership in 58 years at 10.8 billion trips, but the current federal funding bill is set to expire on May 31, 2015.

Although a long-term transportation bill is supported by the transportation industry in near unanimity, APTA wanted a way to connect their message with constituents and to broadcast it out to a wide audience.

The Stand Up 4 Transportation story map features first-person narratives describing how public transit is impacting people in all parts of the country and sectors of the economy. The story map strategically launched in coordination with national Stand Up For Transportation Day on April 9th, a keystone event for showing national bill support.

Story from Minneapolis, MN

The map provides users with quick data visualization and offers information important at the community level including:

  • Transportation funding
  • Manufacturing Jobs
  • Rail and bus services

The ability to share the map on social media enabled APTA to amplify their message. Launching the application helped propel #SU4T on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. By using maps, APTA was able to show the scale and impact of public transit, in a new way that text could not.

#SU4T

View the Stand Up 4 Transportation story map and see for yourself how your story can get in front of Congress and decision makers.

New Release of REL Midwest EdMaps

Blue Raster is pleased to announce a new release of the REL Midwest’s EdMaps, an interactive web mapping application that helps education stakeholders think spatially about education issues affecting their communities.

Historic District-Level Ethnicity

Initially launched in January 2014, EdMaps enables users to visualize and analyze complex, geographically linked education data through easy-to-use story maps. The updated application features three additional maps, as well as a new custom maps tool and tutorial video. It also incorporates recently released public school, private school, and district-level school data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The new story maps look at:

  1. School access to broadband Internet – Currently fewer than 40 percent of American public schools have high-speed Internet in their classrooms. President Obama stated in a ConnectED conference that, “In a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, the least we can do is expect that our schools are properly wired.”
  2. Historic district-level ethnicity – Users can view the distribution of racial/ethnic groups across the Midwest region from 2000/01 – 2011/12.
  3. Priority and Focus schools – Visualize locations of low-performing schools designated as Priority or Focus schools.

Broadband Map

The data and story maps in the application address the Rel Midwest’s four main priority areas of college and career readiness, early childhood education, educator effectiveness, and low-performing schools. Blue Raster built the application using the JavaScript API, ArcGIS Desktop, and ArcGIS for Server. Future releases of the application will feature additional story maps including a look at Advanced Placement (AP) courses in the Midwest region using the Esri Map Journal Builder.

Check out the application today by visiting EdMaps.

Mapping Education and Demographic Trends with MapED

The Census Mapping program at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) – U.S. Department of Education has just released MapED, a new online mapping platform developed by Blue Raster and partner, Sanametrix, to visualize education and census data across the country.

MapED Homepage

The platform unites NCES and CENSUS datasets with GIS mapping capabilities. The general public can investigate education and demographic trends on local, regional, and national scales. The improved workflow makes it possible for anyone to discover, map, and analyze the data with ease, as users walk through selecting a program or topic area and explore and visualize the data on customizable maps.

Initially, the platform contains school, district, and or state-level data from:

  • American Community Survey (ACS)
  • Common Core of Data (CCD)
  • Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS)
  • National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
  • the Private School Universe Survey (PSS)
  • More data and programs are planned in the future.

Tai Phan, School District Demographic System Survey Area and Census Mapping Lead at NCES
“MapED is a valuable resource. The data has always been available but the ability to narrow down hundreds of Census demographic indicators over multiple years, starting out with a topic of interest; and then visualize it on a national map down to the district or school level is a new and powerful way to make it accessible to a much wider audience.

-Tai Phan, Census Mapping Lead at NCES


MapED also features a series of  Story Maps that will be released in the coming months. The initial release features Story Maps exploring school bullying on the basis of race, sex, and disability as well as public school student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from 2003 to 2013. Future releases will include additional story maps including school enrollment by race comparisons using ACS data.

Map Ed Storymap on Bullying

MapED is developed using the ArcGIS API for JavaScript and ArcGIS Server and uses .NET web services to automate the addition of new data each year. Esri JavaScript templates and ArcGIS Online both support the development of story maps.

To learn more about the project and view the application, visit NCES MapED.

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