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When you start ArcGIS Explorer the first time, you see the default basemap which is specified by the Application Configuration. On the Home tab, in the Map group click the Contents Window button to show the Contents window:
The Contents window lists the contents of the map:

Initially, the only item displayed in the Contents window is the default basemap. You can change the basemap at any time. As you interact with ArcGIS Explorer, in many cases, you'll have the opportunity to add new content to the map; when you do so, an entry representing that content will also appear in the Contents window.

You can use ArcGIS Explorer to find places, addresses, driving directions, measure point and distances, etc. When you search for or measure something that you want to save with the rest of the map's content and re-use on another occasion, you'll have the option to move the results of these controls' actions to the map. They are added as new notes in the Contents window. The notes are selected and ArcGIS Explorer goes to their location. By default, new notes are inserted at the top of the Contents window, though it is also possible to move them to a folder.

When you exit ArcGIS Explorer you will be prompted to save any new results.

##### Adding content

In addition to notes, views, links, and folders, any geographic data content that you add to the map is listed in the Contents window. For example, content from ArcGIS Online, local data layers, layer packages, KML files, GIS services, and text files or GPS sources containing location information.
Learn more about adding content

You'll see that some items, like this KML file, have nested sub-items:

##### Interacting with Items

Selecting an item in the Contents window will make contextual tabs available in the ribbon that apply to that type of item. Double-clicking an item will cause ArcGIS Explorer to fly to the default location associated with the item and will also activate the default contextual tab on the ribbon.

Double-clicking the basemap will zoom to the full extent.

To select an adjacent range of items, select an item, hold down the Shift key, and then hold down the item at the end of the range; to select multiple, non-adjacent items hold down the Ctrl key while making each selection.

##### Organizing content

You can organize the items in the contents in any way you like. By default new items are added to the top of the contents and you can drag them up or down to place them in a specific order.

You can also organize related items (layers, results, links, etc.) into folders and you can order the items in a folder in any order you like. Click and drag the selected items to move them to a folder:

A range of of adjacent items | ...dragged... | and dropped into a folder

or right-click the selected item(s) to display a context menu and then click Move To Folder... to display a dialog listing all the folders.

The items in a folder can be sorted alphabetically or by type. To sort the items in a folder, use the sorting buttons on the folder’s Tools tab in the Ribbon:

While the Contents window doesn’t depict drawing order (i.e. which layers draw on top of other layers), you can manipulate the drawing order in the Manage Layers dialog. This moves the layer or result up and down in the drawing order. You can also quickly move a layer to the top or bottom of the drawing order. Note that this affects the map display, but doesn’t affect how the items are listed in the Contents window.

##### Legends

Some items are drawn using more than one symbol, for example a Capital Cities layer might use graduated symbols to display population, map service layers can have sub-layers with symbology information, etc. This symbology information for layers is not displayed in the Contents window, but is available in the Legend window.
Learn more about the Legend window

##### Item State

An item's check box controls its visibility. Note that an item may be checked but not be visible. This can happen if the item is outside of the current viewing area of the map or if the current map scale is outside the item’s scale range. When a layer is out of scale range, its name is drawn in gray and when you hover over the layer name, you'll see a tooltip indicating the reason:

If the underlying data for an item in the Contents window cannot be found, the item’s icon is flagged with an exclamation point and its text is drawn in red and when you hover over the layer name, you'll see a tooltip indicating the reason:

Use a folder’s checkbox to control the visibility of the items contained within it.