Author: kfcooper

Chapter 9

 

I didn’t have too much trouble with the tutorials. I did start to notice that the directions were a lot less “hold your hand”, which I suppose I have noticed the last few chapters. But I especially felt with this chapter it was on me to remember how to find specific functions and what buttons I needed to click to get certain things to pop-up. I didn’t have too many issues throughout the chapter. In 9-4, I think I got a little lost going back and forth between tables and what exactly I was trying to achieve. 

Chapter 10

 

I didn’t have any trouble in 10-1. In 10-2 however, I thought I did some things slightly off in terms of the Kernal Density tool. I was still able to get the symbology to look similar in the end but not what appeared in the book exactly. However, I realized I had to relayer some things on the contents pane and was able to get my map to look like the example in the book. I didn’t run into any issues adding the thresholds either. 10-3 didn’t yield any comments or concerns. 

Chapter 11

 

The keyboard shortcuts in 11-1 were very useful. I know I get frustrated with using just the mouse sometimes so I feel like the shortcuts were a little more accurate. When trying to change the vertical exaggeration, this function would not pop up, so I moved onto the next step of the tutorial. I did get the illumination to change, and there was a difference but it didn’t seem too dramatic. I didn’t run into any issues until 11-5. I think that the Duplicate Vertical tool was acting a little glitchy because it kept closing before I could even change any of the field or hit duplicate. I eventually got it (I think). I think through the glitching too many floors were added, but I was afraid to redo it and not be abel to get the Duplicate Vertical appeal to work again. I did get the slider tool to work though! I didn’t have any issues with the rest of the tutorial after this though. I think the most trouble I had this whole chapter was on 11-7, attempting to get the animations to work properly. I tried this several times following the instructions, and the add animation button was always greyed out and I am not sure why. I was able to get the timeline to pop up but couldn’t get things added like it was said in the book. I asked someone who was in the lab for help and they couldn’t get it to work either. 

 

Week 5

 

Chapter 4

 

I felt much more confident this week after all of the exercises last week! In 4-1, I had a lot of trouble creating a project. I tried this several times, and each time it wasn’t even opening the basic US map like the book said it should. I ended up completely restarting on a different computer and got it to work. The tasks in this tutorial felt a little tedious but I think I got them to work eventually. In 4-2, there were a ton of issues but I think that I was able to get things figured out, most of the issues where when tyring to type in expressions and just overall finding things. Section 4-3 was very helpful to look at different clauses and I can see why they would be useful. Sections 4-4, 4-5, and 4-6 didn’t give me a ton of issues and were pretty straight forward. 

Chapter 5

 

This chapter was not too bad. 5-1 was cool to compare different world maps, I honestly did not know there were so many of them. 5-2 was also useful for US specific changes. 5-3 was very useful to learn all about layers.  In tutorial 5-4, I had some trouble finding the XY Table as it would not show up after right clicking Libraries. I found it was actually labeled under “Create Points from Table” and then “XY Points.” After this fiasco, I was unable to find the proper Library data set to input into the table? I realized this was already there and then was able to get the library data points to display. I was then able to add the school districts. 5-5 was useful for using Census maps which will be very helpful in the public health field. 5-6 helped me understand raster files much more in-depth which was useful because it was a hard concept for me to grasp before.

Chapter 6

 

Section 6-1 was pretty simple, although I did have some trouble getting the labels to work so I just skipped that step and moved on to the next tutorial. 6-2 and 6-3 were pretty self explanatory and I didnt have any issues. 6-4 was also super quick and helpful. The append tool seems pretty useful to bring some different tables together. 6-5 and 6-6 were useful for both using different features and being able to intersect them as well as learning about land use features. In 6-7, was also useful for comparing the services of fire departments. 

Chapter 7

 

In 7-1, the vertex points gave me a lot of trouble. I had a really hard time getting them to drag properly. I feel like this tool could be a lot easier to use if it was designed a bit differently. I figured out the reason I was having so much trouble was because I had sketch proportionally on.  7-2 was pretty useful for actually learning how to create the polygon tools themselves. 7-3 was also cool to learn about all of the different tools to add to these features. 7-4 at the first mention of CAD gave me flashbacks to learning Autocad in my high school engineering class. It is okay thought, we persevered. It honestly took me a hot minute to get the transform feature to work properly but I got the CAD image to line up!

Chapter 8

 

8-1 was pretty easy. I had some trouble here and there finding some buttons but it wasn’t too bad. 8-2 was also pretty easy and I did not come across any issues.

 

Week 4

Chapter 1 

To be honest, I think my first hurdle here was just figuring out how to open the tutorial and in the ArcGIS Program. Once I got there and things were starting to look like what was actually in the book, I started to feel a lot better. The steps in the book have been very useful because there are so many tools I barely know where to look. The first tutorial was very helpful in getting to understand where everything was located within the system. Tutorial 1-2 was also helpful with navigating different tutorials. Overall, lots of hovering over random icons to find what I was looking for from the book. For some reason, the Tutorial 1-3 section on attribution tables tripped me up a little bit. I was a little confused on what I was doing but I think I got it figured out. I really enjoyed playing with the attribution tables and can really see how they would be useful when comparing data and such. Locating the statistics tool was a little bit different than what was in the book but I was able to get the Summary Statistics to come up! Section 1-4 felt a little silly at times but I also know it will be very useful when making modifications to future projects to really customize them. In this section, the book had different directions for removing the halo tab. It said to go to the ‘symbol tab’ but I had to go to expressions first and the was able to find the section for halos. Could not get the park symbology to open the gallery to find the park symbol but I could find other symbols. When trying to open the 3-D view of the Health Care Clinics it kepts saying “failed to open map view”

 

Chapter 2

In 2-1 I had a very hard time getting the symbols to change for Manhattan but I eventually got something similar to what the book was saying to work. I was able to get the colors pretty close on this activity but I did not spend a lot of time getting the exact ones specified. In Section 2-2 the pop-ups were really cool and will definitely be useful. I think they were a little hard and confusing to use at first but then I caught on. In section 2-3, I can see how useful creating quarries would be when trying to pick locations for things, especially for those in need! In 2-4, it kept telling me that I couldn’t complete the steps for the section “Over age 60 receiving food stamps” because it did not have a valid data source, I tried to troubleshoot this to get it to work and some how found how to do it? I think I just stumbled up getting it to use the right data set but I honestly probably couldn’t do it again (used this for one of my pics for this chapter because I was really proud that I got it to work). 2-5 went very quickly, not sure if it was just that simple or if I am really starting to get a hang of the program. In 2-6, I had a hard time making adjustments for the histograms and feel like I could not fully figure out changing the values because it seemed to keep completing one of the values, so I am not entirely sure about that. I did figure out the whole swipe tool thing and that was pretty nifty. 2-7 was also super simple and not a lot of steps or confusion. I will be honest, I like to choose different colors than it says in the book to make the map prettier. 2-8 was slightly confusing because I don’t think the book fully matched the program, but I was able to get the burrows to disappear when I zoomed in so I think it worked!

Chapter 3 

For some reason, in 3-1, the regular Art Employment map always showed up blank but the Art Employment per 1,000 was fine. I ended up completely just closing and redoing this tutorial and it worked this time around. I can see why this section would be very useful when preparing maps for presentations, especially with the chart features. In 3-2, I am not exactly sure what I was doing wrong because once I got on the web version as per instructions, the metropolitan layer was always grayed out and I could not do anything with it. I was still able to enable pop-ups though! Section 3-3 was also very helpful and I think that this app feature could be used for a lot of cool projects within my public health major. Section 3-4, I had a very hard time with this section because it seemed like nothing was where it was supposed to be according to the book so I had to dig through places to find things. Also did not have the pie chart option for me when configuring the map. I was able to get a pretty good dashboard put together though!

Storyboard Link

3-2 Link

Dashboard link

 

Chapter 4

Map densities are very useful for finding patterns, which is very relevant in terms of public health and potential outbreaks that need to be tracked and have surveillance on them. I found the section on deciding what to map based on features and information you need to map to be very useful. I also thought that the business and employees per square mile density map examples on page 109 are very interesting and are a good example of being able to use density maps for finding patterns. I found the dot density maps to be very useful and something that I do not think I have really seen before. I liked how it uses the color key and dots to indicate the values of density, which I find to not only be visually appealing but also useful when interpreting the map. It was also interesting to learn about when dot maps are most effective, like when the dots are too small or too far apart to convey a true pattern to the viewer. I had no clue what a density surface was until learning that it is created by raster layers. I was still slightly confused by what that really meant but the section about what GIS actually does was insightful to learn that it “defines a neighborhood around each cell center. It totals the number of features that fall within that neighborhood and divides that number by the area of the neighborhood.” This made even more sense after reading the section about using graduated colors and how you have to assign values to each layer in order for them to build on top of each other. In addition, the contour feature seems like it will be useful to better define these boundaries of densities in some particular maps that have a rate of change or rapid change.

 

Chapter 5

I liked how Mitchell discussed why mapping inside areas is so important because “by monitoring what’s going on in an area, people know whether to take action.” The example of the district attorney and crimes near schools is not an example that immediately came to mind but is an issue that might not be as easily identified without mapping. The differentiation between single areas versus multiple areas was useful because they have distinctly different purposes in terms of monitoring. Again, some knowledge from statistics courses seemed to be useful when talking about discrete versus continuous features because these definitions are very similar to their statistical counterparts. However, it was good to review that discrete features can be listed or counted or can be summarized by a numeric attribute. Continuous features are defined as features that represent seamless geographic phenomena. Continuous feature examples are categories or classes. The section on information needed for analysis was also very useful to know what type of map you could make with the given example features for a flood plain. The section on “Drawing areas and features” gives a good overview of the importance of what you are trying to portray in terms of features and what you need in terms of data sets. The table on page 147 comparing drawing areas and features, selecting the features of the area, and overlaying the areas and features was useful to understand how each type can be used for different features and their pros and cons. The overlapping areas and features help define discrete features inside continuous areas. I really enjoyed the maps under the “Overlaying areas with continuous categories or classes” on page 167, I think that these were both very useful as an example of how useful this feature can be when comparing different data sets.

Chapter 6 

I think that this section was very interesting because it mentioned how GIS can be used to look at what is happening within a traveling range and not just a fixed spot. I found the example of this to be very useful in terms of understanding what the author meant by looking at what is happening within a traveling range. I think that another good example of this would be notifying people within 500 feet of a health hazard, or maybe in extreme cases or a hypothetical situation – there would be an outbreak of measles. Due to the severity and how contagious measles is and also how long it stays on surfaces and in the air of a room, this technique could be useful in an outbreak scenario because then all of the people within a certain traveling distance in the area could be notified and tested to prevent more cases or severe cases. The section on street segments was also something that seemed very familiar and maybe even “simple” but then when I started reading more about it, it started to become more complicated due to their complexity of networks, distances, and especially costs. Learning about the per-unit cost put things into perspective to me in terms of understanding why our infrastructure is not always in good condition because when you think about this cost per unit and how many units there are in so many places, I have started to understand why everything is not kept up with completely, especially in weather climates that roads will experience freezing and thawing to create potholes (thanks, Ohio!). Learning about cost turntables and how important they are in terms of calculating costs. As much as I really hate to think about money sometimes, I feel like this was a good section to have towards the end of the book because it helped me make sense of how important cost is in terms of GIS.

Chapter One

I think the definition that Mitchell provides for GIS is very effective because of how simple it is: “GIS analysis is a process for looking at geographic patterns in your data and at relationships between features.” This definition is short and to the point but this description allows me to better understand all of the capabilities of GIS rather than just “maps.” I also think it was useful to approach using GIS in terms of a research question you are trying to answer, like starting with framing the question and really understanding what you are trying to get out of the project at hand will help guide you on what type of data you need to acquire and then which methods to use to then process the data and eventually try to interpret the results. I found the breakdown of types of features to be very useful. Terminology such as “discrete features” and “continuous phenomena” were not terms that I have really heard before and it was useful to understand that discrete features are used for locations and lines when an actual location can be pinpointed, whereas, continuous phenomena is used for an entire area. ‘The two ways of representing geographic features’ also brought two new terms I was unfamiliar with which were “vector” and “raster.” Vector uses rows and tables and is more of the traditional x and y approach. Raster models “use a matrix of cells in a continuous space.” From my understanding, the raster model layers different data points for analysis. In the next section, I learned how map projections use a sphere to project coordinates onto a flat surface and how it distorts the shapes, area, measurements, etc. Coordinate systems use a 2D system and have specific units. I noticed that the types of attribute values (categories, ranks, counts, amounts, ratios) are very similar to different types of data in statistics (nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio), which was a great segue into talking about data tables!

Chapter Two

This chapter talks about why we map things and immediately I was met with the quote “mapping where things are can show you where you need to take action” which is literally so important for public health. For example, John Snow used maps and data points to understand that the cholera outbreak was coming from the Broad Street pump and was able to identify the problem this way. I also think the section on how to use the map was important because it mentioned using the appropriate map for your audience. This is very relevant to any type of work related to policies where you are trying to persuade lawmakers or decision makers. I learned how one of the foundational parts of starting to map data is importing or assigning coordinates and category values. The paragraph explaining what GIS does was very helpful to understand how it goes from data to mapping this information. I also found the visual example on page 31 to be helpful because in the first image it starts with one set of coordinates, then in the next picture it starts to connect the coordinates, and in the last photo, it shows the highlight of the parcel of land mentioned in the text. In the category section  I also appreciated the more in depth explanation of what GIS does and how it looks up symbols based on category. I didn;t know the simple example of line thickness on road maps was using GIS before! I also learned that most people can’t distinguish more than seven categories which honestly makes so much sense because I think when I look at figures that have more than seven I get very overwhelmed! I also think it is interesting how much of an impact grouping categories can have on your data and it is something that I have not really thought about! Overall, this chapter was very insightful and provided a lot of useful information!

Chapter Three

I found the concept of “Mapping the Most and Least” to be very thought provoking. At first, I didn’t quite understand this concept but once I read through the public health example of physicians per 1,000 people it made more sense. I also found the section on Ratios to be very useful. Although this is a concept I have learned a few different times in my academic career, it is always helpful to have a reminder of the different types of ratios and how they can most effectively be used, especially in terms of mapping data. I was a little confused by ranks at first but once it explained it in terms of text and then provided a visual example on page 62 it made much more sense! Classes were also a useful refresher in terms of what their purpose is, as well as an example on page 63 which uses poverty rates. Standard classification schemes was another concept I was not as familiar with. The text gave a good overview that explained it as grouping similar values to find patterns. I liked how it was broken down into the four categories of natural breaks (natural groupings), quantile, equal interval, and standard deviation. The information about how to choose a classification scheme was also useful and something I made note of: uneven data: natural breaks, evenly distributed data and want to emphasize differences in features: standard deviation, evenly distributed data and want to emphasize relative differences: quantile. Outliers are always something that will come up in data sets and can be very impactful to what you are trying to portray. I appreciated the tips and trips on what to look for with outliers. I found the entire section on making a map to be very useful, especially the table with all of the breakdowns of features, values, advantages and disadvantages. The checklist for choosing a map type will also be useful in the future!

Hi! My name is Kelsea Cooper and I am a junior double majoring in Public Health and Genetics! I am from Kent, Ohio. I have a cat named Marlin (he is very mischievous). In my free time I like to read, craft, and watch TV!

(Also including a photo of Marlin)

The whole reason I am taking this course is because of GIS’s application within public health so I was very excited that it was mentioned right out of the gate. It was really cool to learn about how GIS started by just layering paper on top of each other to initiate a whole field of study. In this section, I also learned the difference between spatial analysis and mapping. Spatial analysis generates information from maps and data where mapping simply represents the geographic data. Moving on to the section about “The Messy Business of Digging For Roots: GIS’s Intellectual Antecedents,” there was a specific quote that stood out to me which was “GIS is a relative newcomer to geography.” Although this is a very simple quote, it provoked quite a bit of thought because it prompted me to think about the grand scheme of things in terms of how long maps have been around and then when putting it on a timeline, GIS is on the very end of the timeline. Although it has been around for a short time on this scale, it has made tremendous impacts on so many different fields, including my own. As I mentioned above, I am a Public Health major and I wanted to take this course because there is so much application of GIS within the field. Schuurman mentions how important GIS is when monitoring outbreaks or when identifying areas of health disparities (just to name a few applications). Given this timeline and the timeline of when we really started to fully understand communicable diseases, I think that we are so lucky as a population that they were close to each other on this timeline. This also ties into another point Schuurman made about how virtually everything you have or eat/rely on these days now relies on GIS in one form or another. Overall, this reading made me very excited to explore all of the different applications within GIS and all of the good it can be used for!

Here are my searches:

#1: My search was “smoking prevalence and access to health outcomes” but I was able to find this article called “Mapping a COVID-19 vulnerability: Areas of South and Midwest have fewer hospital beds and higher smoking rates”

This is a map that depicts each US county by smoking rate and hospital capacity. This is very important because not only is smoking more prevalent in areas that have lower socioeconomic status, but in addition, those areas also have less access to health care facilities. In this case, it also in concern with Covid-19, which smoking increases a person’s risk of severely being impacted by Covid-19.

Mapping a COVID-19 vulnerability. (2019). Truth Initiative. https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/smoking-region/mapping-covid-19-vulnerability-areas-south-and-midwest-have-fewer

‌#2: My search was “US smokeless tobacco prevalence” I wasn’t really looking to compare this to any type of health outcome in this search, I was just curious what it would be across the US. However, when I was searching through some images, I found this one that compares global smokeless tobacco (SLT)  prevalence to policies that country has in place, “The global impact of tobacco control policies on smokeless tobacco use: a systematic review”

The shading of each country indicates the prevalence of SLT usage, then there are icons also on each country to indicate what types of policies are in place for that country. I like the premise of the icons indicating policies but I will say it is a bit hard to read, especially for countries that are geographically smaller.

Chugh, A., Arora, M., Jain, N., Aishwarya Vidyasagaran, Readshaw, A., Sheikh, A., Eckhardt, J., Siddiqi, K., Chopra, M., Masuma Pervin Mishu, Kanaan, M., Rahman, M. A., Mehrotra, R., Rumana Huque, Forberger, S., Suranji Dahanayake, Khan, Z., Boeckmann, M., & Omara Dogar. (2023). The global impact of tobacco control policies on smokeless tobacco use: a systematic review. The Lancet Global Health, 11(6), e953–e968. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2214-109x(23)00205-x

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