Chapter 1: This chapter was very helpful in learning how to navigate ArcGIS. Something that I thought was super cool was the different base maps that you can use around the individual map. This is super helpful when examining the larger map because it gives you more context on where the map is located in relation to the things. Another thing that I thought was super cool was the ability to layer things and move the layers on top of each other. This makes it easy to only focus on one layer, or layer things in order to display multiple things at once. The chapter also discusses how to display the map with a legend and save it to your computer. This can be used for presenting the information on the map, and can be useful because you can select exactly what you want displayed within the map. I was very surprised by how much information could be included in the map. For example, the chapter shows each specific clinic and provides information on the clinic as well as a link to the clinic’s website. This allows the map viewer to get as much information as possible. Viewing raster data on the map was very useful because it grouped some of the higher poverty areas together and gave me an overall view of the map. Something that I struggled with in this chapter was under the “Work with the fields view of an attribute table” section. I couldn’t figure out how to rename the Alais column in the chart. Another thing that I struggled with was selecting specific clinics and having them show up in the chart. I was not able to find the selection button that allowed me to select each clinic. Learning how to use the symbology was very helpful and definitely something that I will use in the future, especially if symbols start to come together, and I need them to stand out more.
Chapter 2: Overall, I think this chapter was very useful in learning the displays of maps. It aided me in learning how to label specific parts of a map. Something that I thought was interesting was being able to learn how to shut off specific information that I didn’t need when displaying pop-ups. Something that the chapter brought up that I hadn’t previously considered was that shapes and colors make the map easier to read for color blind people. Since this isn’t a problem that I personally have, I never thought about it. I struggled with a few different sections in this chapter. Specifically section 2-4. This section I wasn’t able to originally complete because the neighborhood section in the contents bar didn’t have valid data. Another section I struggled with was 2-8. In this section, I wasn’t able to set the visibility out beyond. Something else that confused me in this chapter was the differences between the different classification methods. While I understood that changing them made a difference, I didn’t understand why the difference was significant to analyzing the data. Something that I thought was super cool and useful was the swipe feature when comparing the male-headed households receiving food stamps and the female-headed households receiving food stamps. The swipe method provided a better way to compare the two maps than just switching back and forth between them.
Chapter 3: This chapter provided me with a lot of useful information. It took me quite a while since I was switching between GIS online and the app, but it provided me with some useful skills. I was able to learn how to format a chart based on certain maps as well as how to label and share that chart with other people. Additionally, I learned how to create a bar chart based on the map to display my data in many different ways. I ran into a few issues with the formatting, but they weren’t huge issues, so I was able to skip past them easily. It was super cool that I was able to access my maps through both online and the app, and that they both provided me with both editing and formatting options. Another useful skill was learning how to create my own story through GIS, which included the different charts and maps that I had previously downloaded. While I can acknowledge the different uses for online vs the app, I prefer the app more. This might be due to the fact that I’m a little bit more used to it, but also due to the number of edits I can make to the map through the app. Towards the end of the chapter, creating my dashboard got a little confusing. While I was able to add all the different elements to my map, they didn’t layer on top of the map like the chapter implied. Instead, they created their own tabs in the dashboard.