Author: necherry

Cherry Blog week 4  

Chapter 1 

So far throughout the first tutorial chapter, we are working on just some of the basic understanding of where different things are within the GIS program. An example of this is learning how to turn on and off features. Something I was really struggling with was trying to figure out how to move the features. After some time, I ended up looking it up to see and realized I had to go to the list by editing tab so I could actually move the features I needed. So far, throughout a majority of the assignment, I’ve had a really hard time orienting myself to GIS since computer systems are not very easy concepts for me to understand. So throughout a majority of the assignment, I’ve had to look up how to find things since the tutorials have been hard for me to follow.

Here’s a picture after the First (1-1) section of the tutorial. 

Once I got past the first section of the tutorial for chapter one, it actually got a lot easier, and the instructions felt clearer, so I was able to move through the assignment more easily. For example, the bookmark and zooming in and out part of the tutorial was pretty easy to do. It was also interesting to see the actual information for the vectors in the attribute table (at least for 1-2). Overall, once I got through the first section of the tutorial, it became a lot easier to work with the system. In 1-3, working with the statistics summary part was kind of fun, initially I clicked the little circle plus at the top of the bar for it and ended up having to redo it because after seeing the screenshot in the tutorial of what it was supposed to look like but it was not too complicated so I wasn’t too stressed out about it. 

Chapter 2

For the first 2-1 Section of the second chapter was really easy to work through, and I also quite like how colourful the map ended up being. I think it adds quite a bit of fun to the assignment. When we got to the labeling part of 2-2, I got kind of confused, and it took me a while to figure out where to go to actually get that part done. 

I’m still really struggling with the labeling part; it also still looks very overwhelming in comparison to the tutorial instructions, and I’m not sure how to fix that. Throughout the tutorial for chapter 2 theres a ton of aspects that were centered around symbology, which was quite confusing for me,e but it was kind of fun to also work withcolors schemes. 

2-5 I thought this section was really fun, seeing the overlap of data and trying to find the correlation between them. Overall, this section definitely had very confusing parts, but once I got about halfway through it, most of what I was doing was related to symbolog,y with new parts added to it with each section, so having the same basis to work off of made this chapter a lot easier as I progressed. 

Chapter 3 

Initally adding the maps to the arts layout was a little frustrating because when i had added them they wee completely different sizes which I did not think was going to be an issue since we were going to resize them anyways, but it did end up being an issue because through that process one of the maps had gotten cut off on both sides so I ended having to start over on that section. Overall, it was not too hard to do, but it did take me a little extra time. I know they were also supposed to resize, but it didn’t seem to work for the map that ‘cut off’. I was also initially really confused about how to get rid of the label name because in the instructions, it just said click show, which was quite confusing because what it meant was a tab called show properties. 

In the section after this, it was quite a bit of a struggle to work on the charts because there were so many little tedious steps, but after that, I didn’t have too much trouble.

Blog week 3 

Chapter 4 

This chapter of focused primarily on what density mapping is and the several ways to do this kind of mapping. In the beginning, it begins to explain that density mapping is necessary to show and view the highest concentration of a feature. This can include a wide range of data, such as the number of workers in a business district or the number of homes with children within a certain zipcode. After this, the chapter moves on to describe the different types of density mapping, the benefits and downsides of each, and later describes how to use them and which situations they would be more beneficial to use in. 

The two described versions of mapping density include defined areas and a density surface. A defined area is typically a dot map or essentially individual locations. Often, these kinds of maps are used when you’re already using data like a census, which makes it a lot easier to put in the information. The other kind of density mapping is a density surface, which is made through a GIS raster layer or a contour map. This version of a density map is much more detailed than a defined area, but it also takes quite a lot more work to build these maps, so they’re a little more time-consuming and confusing than a defined area. Although they’re definitely worth it to use in situations where more visibility of the details in your map is necessary. 

Later in the chapter, it then continues to describe how to map density through processes such as the cell size, search radius, and units. As mentioned in the last few chapters as well, it emphasizes the importance of color gradiance and how to situate it. And lastly, it explains how to view these maps and properly evaluate them. 

Chapter 5 

At the beginning of chapter 5, it begins to describe the importance of mapping what’s inside individual areas. One of the examples given was related to crime and being able to find hot spots. This seems to be derived from the density mapping described in the last chapter, but is more specifically related to individual regions to better/analyse things. I also liked the example that was used to explain the way in which areas are decided as more valuable than others for conservation purposes. They further explained how mapping these individual areas and features allows you to see what types of features are in which areas and create a better analysis. 

Then it later continues to talk about the different ways to find what features are within what areas, that being drawing areas and features, selecting inside areas, and overlapping areas. These are all used to find different information about an area or a collection of areas. They also continue to mention that building a map quite frequently, if done well enough, with me, all you need to do is an analysis of certain data and the correlation between features and areas. They also mention how the different ways of showing a defined area are important, depending on the goal in mind. For example, only adding the border of an area emphasizes the border itself, while shading it in or putting a screen over it emphasizes the area as a whole. 

Throughout much of the second half of the chapter, it is almost like a summary or repetition of previous chapters and information. For example, to explain again what vectors are and how rasters are used in GIS, along with what they’re needed for. 

Chapter 6 

For chapter 6, it explains the different ways of finding information in relation to things nearby to what you’re focused on. It begins by explaining the 3 different ways of finding this information. It begins with straight line distance, which is used to define an area of influence by using boundaries; this is used purely to measure distance. Then later explains distance or cost over a network, which measures travel, through cost and distance. Lastly was cost over surface, which is used to calculate areas and travel range. While measuring this through cost. Another thing that was kind of interesting to me was the distinct bands, which, I’m not sure if this was the intention, reminded me of the Chicago school model that explains the sectors of a city. It isn’t the most accurate example of cities, but it’s just what distinct bands remind me of. 

Later in the chapter, it continues to explain the details of the parameters and the necessary parts to finding what’s nearby and how to build maps that will support this goal. 

Something I thought that was kind of interesting was the spider diagram, it’s used to help show when a feature is within range/distance to two different/several locations, and mapping with GIS helps to draw lines between the feature and multiple locations,s so it is easier to visualize these attributes. 

Something else I thought was interesting was when, later on in the chapter, it begins to talk about mapping classes. There’s quite a bit of difference between how features and classes are mapped; the main thing being that it is advised not to map more than 7 features on a map, but if you map more than that, it just advises you to begin using different colors to depict it properly and without confusion.

Blog Week 2 

 

Chapter 1 

It was interesting learning about the different attributes that are all included in GIS, for example, components such as vectors and rasters. Previously, before this from math class, I had already had an understanding of what a vector is, the actual separation within the map being/had been made. Although I hadn’t heard of what a raster was before this reading, from what I understood from the description, a raster is the geographic area that you are separating from others. Essentially, rosters and vectors form the basis of what GIS operates on, while creating several other methods of organization and overlay. Examples of this are your categories that separate your types of data, or ranks that allow you to have an understanding of the value of things within a certain data set. While counts, amounts, and ratios are a little bit different, considering they’re not a continuous set of data, while categories and ranks are. 

 

GIS as a program seems to me to be a process of sectioning out and boarding things. It’s interesting to see the examples in the text have such a wide variety; it makes me wonder how many different fields of work/career fields this system has made a bit easier. With the examples used, it ranged anywhere from the borders of land ownership, crime, or even the literal borders of different vegetation. 

 

With the use of categories that seem to allow GIS to be an extremely organized system. All while allowing you to overlay different data on top of one another, whether that be looking at the businesses and crime rates together or any other kind of variant. The process of finding specific information that was explained later in the chapter was interesting in how it essentially involves putting in a variety of necessary terms to find the exact information that you need. 

 

Chapter 2 

 

Throughout chapter two for the mapping process in GIS, there is a heavy focus on how to categorize the information within your maps. Quite a large portion of the information describes how to build a map of the necessary features/information that you are attempting to depict. Some of the things I understood were in relation to what content you want to be the focus of the map, like highlighting features in darker colors to bring more attention to those areas. It is very easy to build an overwhelming map, so an important thing to remember is not add more than 7 categories, as mentioned in the chapter. Another way was to combine categories to make them easier to view and understand. With this being said, from what I understand, it seemed like a give-and-take process because it’s easy to lose information while combining categories. 

 

There is also a big emphasis on the symbols you use within your maps, based on the visibility of the symbols and being able to tell the difference between them. Essentially, a majority of the reading is based on the visibility of the maps to the viewer. There was a huge emphasis on the colors used for categories, like using different color schemes can allow for more emphasis on different parts of the map and allow for focus among those categories, while other color schemes can make a map overwhelming to look at for the viewer and become more confusing. Also it seems important to emphasize correlating categories with similar colors as well. The dot data was also interesting to me because it reminded me a lot of when you look at germs or organisms under a microscope, which is a fun comparison since were looking at math data essentially. 

 

Although I struggled quite a bit trying to understand the record and database information. 

 

Chapter 3

For this chapter, as well theres so much information that emphasizes the details of mapping. Which sounds a bit redundant, but it is essentially focusing on the details of spreading out information that explicitly shows the information you want in a way the viewer can best understand. The process of most and least mapping is kind of confusing to me, but from what I could understand about the concept, is allowing the reader or viewer to see the value of the categories through what the chapter was explaining about ranks. This is at least one of the reasons why we should be mapping most and least values. One of the examples used in the chapter was about the temperature of different areas. 

Chapter 3 also felt very repetitive in many of the explanations, for part of it I seemed like it was repeating word for word what had been said in the previous chapter. 

It’s also really interesting how much GIS ( at least many of the examples within the chapters) is predominantly focused on urban planning. 

The classification scheme was really confusing to me. I think the overall idea is that different schemes have different ways of classifying information, and there are ways to tweak it to support your data most accurately. While reading the chapter, I was having a really hard time understanding the concept. Also, defining classes seemed kind of complicated because they essentially have to shift the numbers around to define the classes so that the data stays within the appropriate group instead of getting mixed up. It also seems really easy to misinterpret this data because of how complex this issue seems to me, at least. Overall, mapping seems to have a main prerogative around mapping data in a way that is easy for the viewer to understand.

 

1. Good evening, my name is Nicole Cherry, I’m from Columbus, Ohio, and I am a first-year student studying Environmental Science. Possibly a double major including Geography and a minor in Women and gender studies, but I haven’t fully made any decisions past ENVS as my major. I’mexcited to take GIS since I know it will contribute to my major, but further than that, I don’t know much about it.   
2. Something I found really interesting and helpful to get a better understanding of what GIS is was the comparison between the relationship of GIS and the quantitative revolution, and the relationship between mathematics and calculators. This comparison helped me to understand how GIS is essentially a tool used for spatial analysis to make the process much easier and make advances within the field easier to understand and obtain. GIS takes graphing and geographic information from a solely analytical approach to add a visual approach, which causes people to process said information differently. The legitimacy of GIS decisions and results is frequently not disputed, which was really interesting to me because it also mentions how this can essentially frame someone’s perception of different income communities. With this information, Goodchild argued that in GIScience, it is imperative to still dissect the inherent bias that comes with human production in science. This to me really analyzes how even though Fields of science still contain human biases and need to be evaluated and questioned. I also thought it was interesting that it was noted repeatedly that GIS is incredibly important in many spaces in our lives, and having never heard of GIS before coming to OWU, the knowledge of this program seems so necessary to everyone, yet not as widespread as I would anticipate. Even things that seem basic to me on a surface level, such as farming, are incredibly reliant on GIS. Finally, a part that I thought was really interesting throughout the entire reading is that the relationships between groups, even human geographers and GIS scholars, are explored so intently. I guess finishing the reading this does make a lot of sense since, from what I understand, it is the main basis of GIS in exploring relationships between groups of any kind, from humans to relationships and boundaries between plants. GIS seems to be heavily focused on deciding what those boundaries are and where to put them.

1. (A) Political issues are just an interest of mine, so I thought looking up prominent hate groups would be interesting. This source states how the media has brought attention to hate groups, and GIS is used in areas with high rates of hate crimes of different groups, to have a better understanding of where these hate groups are predominantly located. 

Mapping crime – Hate crimes and hate groups in the USA: A spatial analysis with gridded data – ScienceDirect

3. (B) As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community Political issues surrounding this are very important and impact me, so I just thought it would be interesting to see how GIS is involved in research surrounding these issues. This source used GIS to map LGBTQIA+ uncertainty within this political climate. 

Coloring Outside of the Lines: Sketch Mapping Fear, Safety, and Community for LGBTQ+ Students Amidst Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation