Summary
This interactive workshop models how ArcGIS StoryMaps can be used to support geographic thinking and civic stewardship through narrative mapping in secondary classrooms. Participants will engage with a classroom-ready lesson centered on displacement in southwest Louisiana Indigenous communities, including Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe-au-Chien. Using curated photographs, community interviews, historical shoreline data, erosion maps, and student-created counter-maps, educators will explore how students analyze human–environment interactions and connect global processes such as climate change, subsidence, and environmental decision-making to the loss of culture and displacement of entire communities.
The session demonstrates how StoryMaps and counter-mapping practices empower students to challenge dominant narratives of coastal loss, elevate community-centered perspectives of place, sovereignty, and stewardship, and make evidence-based claims using geospatial data. Participants will examine how to scaffold inquiry through printed large-format maps, spatial annotation, fieldwork simulations, and multimodal storytelling to deepen student engagement and geographic reasoning. Attendees will leave with classroom-ready lesson structures, research-informed strategies for narrative mapping, and practical approaches for integrating StoryMaps into human–environment and place-based geography units.
Session Focus
Secondary/High School | Physical & Environmental Geography | Inquiry
Conference Room
Reynolds Leadership Circle
Meet the Presenter
Nicole Means is an Instructional Specialist and AP Human Geography teacher at West Feliciana High School in St. Francisville, Louisiana. She is a National Board Certified Teacher and serves as a Reader for the AP Human Geography Exam, bringing a strong focus on student thinking and real-world application into her work.
Throughout her career, Nicole has been awarded several teaching fellowships, including the National Geographic Grosvenor Fellowship and the Fulbright Distinguished Award, which have shaped her approach to designing place-based, inquiry-driven learning experiences. She is an avid traveler who sees the world as a field study and leads student travel experiences so students can engage with places beyond their own communities.
Her work connects students’ local experiences to broader regional and global patterns. She has conducted fieldwork in her community and across the greater Baton Rouge area, and more recently in southwest Louisiana, where she collaborates with Indigenous communities to explore environmental change, cultural landscapes, and displacement.
