Category: Course Student Work

1. Introduction

Hello, my name is Kathleen, and I am from Dallas, Texas. I am a junior majoring in astrophysics with a minor in environmental science. I plan to work in meteorology or compact objects research. I am taking this course because GIS is one of the most important tools for tracking and predicting severe weather.

2. Reading

This reading surprised me but also taught me a lot about how GIS and how it is viewed and used by various groups of people. I don’t have any experience with GIS and I originally thought it was only used by environmental researchers, but this chapter taught me that it is used in so much more. On just page 1, I learned that even Starbucks uses GIS to find successful shop locations. GIS also has different “definitions” to different sections of the science community. In the chapter, Schuurman offers the examples of city planners who see GIS as a tool to see how residents are affected by possible infrastructure changes, while researchers see it as a way to define boundaries of changing phenomena. I found it very interesting that Canada, the US, and the UK all worked on computer cartography data together to shape what we know today. It is astounding that it would have been developed much later if Tomlinson and Pratt hadn’t sat next to each other on the airplane. The chapter states that GIS would have been inevitably created, if not by geographers, as its creation was supported by many other disciplines in the era of a world increasingly relying on digitalization of data. It is very cool that GIS has given researchers an accessible way to make conclusions through visual data. While Schuurman makes the point that some see it as “unscientific”, I believe that visuals are the best evidence to draw conclusions. This chapter also introduced the “behind-the-scenes” of GIS with GIScience and GISystems. GIScience looks at how the GISystems are used and GISystems looks at what data is needed and how it will be analyzed and coded. The end of the chapter provides us with a multitude of examples of how exactly GIS is woven into our lives. It is surprising how every little detail of our lives, down to what flyers we get in the mail, is influenced by GIS.

3A. GIS Application #1

I am an astrophysics major so I researched how GIS is used in astronomy. The most common use is selecting a site for radio astronomy. This source describes how GIS was used to determine the site for radio astronomy testing in Portugal. They determined that Herdade da Contenda was the location with the lowest risk factor of fire, flooding, impact on flora and fauna, and many other factors.

Source: https://www.mdpi.com/165092

3B. GIS Application #2

I travel to Colorado yearly to hike in the mountains, so the forest fires have had a high impact on our ability to go. This research used GIS to identify areas with a higher fire risk and to determine the factors that influence the intensity of wildfires.

Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2022.100872

4. Quiz

I have completed the quiz.

 

My name is Claire Evans, and I am a second year Environmental Science and Art History student. 

Something within the chapter that caught my eye is the idea of data within GIS being biased due to human biases and choices that must be made to convert data into something  usable within GIS. Uncertain data being difficult to represent and share is true regardless of what a person is using, visual or verbal, GIS or physical papers. The chapter mentioning that GIS can’t work well with uncertain data is then interesting in that it is not a fault only of GISystems. Because it doesn’t have a large impact on how the systems are used, the inclusion of the arguments pertaining to the origins of GIS in an introduction chapter to the systems surprised me. I’m currently taking Urban Geography, and the point made about how a neighborhood looks on a map and how a route may not actually be the most effective based on the data given being incomplete or in favor of a certain area reminded me of the idea that a city looks very different from a map view to a street level view. Dr. John Snow having both mapped out the cases of cholera, but also having to get extra information via speaking to people who lived in the area in order to figure out what wells were causing the cholera outbreaks reminds me of this as well. It’s also similar to looking at a piece of art in a setting other than where it was intended to be; you lose context and surrounding features, such as lighting and sound, when looking at a piece in a museum rather than where it is from, just as you lose some information when looking at a map of data rather than being in the area and community that you are examining.

MSF (Doctors Without Borders) uses MSF to create maps of common needs in communities they are stationed in, and they use a simple form of GIS through MissingMaps to make maps of constantly changing refugee camps that volunteers can help create. 

This study used GIS to examine the number, size, and make-up of Buddhist organizations in the 4 corner states. They examined factors such as race, age, and political leaning to see if there was a potential correlation between these things and the practice of Buddhism in the 4 corner states.

Introduction: My name is Ava Johnson and I am a senior! My major is East Asian studies and I have recently come back to the U.S. after being in Japan for the second time since I have been in college (once to study abroad, and the most recent time for a TPG). I actually took GIS 292 in the fall of 2024, but I truly do not remember most of the things that I learned since it’s been a year and a half. I am excited however to get back into the swing of things for my last semester here at OWU!

Chapter 1: As someone who has mistakenly already taken GIS 292, this chapter was a very nice refresher to be able to go over the ropes again as it has been nearly 2 years since I have done anything remotely related to GIS. Nadine Schuurman introduces Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, by showcasing the many ways that GIS has been used, and can be used in order to peak a person’s interests. In other words, explaining there is no singular way to utilize GIS, and uses examples of college students, epidemiologists, and even corporations like Starbucks utilizing it all in different ways. She argues that GIS can be understood simultaneously as a tool, a science, and a socially embedded practice, and that debates over its identity reveal deeper tensions about knowledge, power, and representation. I appreciated how Schuurman explained GIS first as a technical system designed to capture, store, analyze, and visualize spatial data to then lead to how it has transformed over time.  This instrumental view highlights GIS as software and hardware used for mapping and spatial analysis. However, she also makes note to mention that there are in fact many limitations of this definition, noting that it ignores the theoretical assumptions built into GIS models, such as the simplification of complex social realities into discrete data layers. I also really appreciated how Schuurman introduced critical perspectives that view GIS as socially constructed and politically charged, not solely biased towards positive outcomes of utilizing GIS. This section really takes a step back from the exciting possibilities that come with using GIS to showcase realistic concerns and how these thoughts can oftentimes challenge the assumption that GIS is neutral or objective. With that being said, Schuurman’s chapter encourages readers to see GIS as more than a technical tool. This chapter shows us as readers, and relatively new or unfamiliar with the tool, how GIS shapes knowledge, whose interests it can peak, and how it might be used depending on what a user needs it for.

 

Application 1:Since I studied abroad in Japan, I thought it would be cool to find something related, and I did! I found this application of the different borders of Japan, specifically different prefectures. Along with this, specific kinds of data such as area in square kilometers, as well as population rates were also on the map once a specific prefecture was selected.

Source: Michael Bauer Research GmbH   

 

Application 2: Similar to the first application, I searched up “recent earthquakes near Japan”, and an application came up with different hotspots, deaths, injuries, and overall popular locations.

Source: Maria da Conceição Neves

Intro: My name is Rio Obenauf, I am a sophomore majoring in Sociology and Environmental Studies. I work in the costume shop for the Theater department. I plan to go to grad school for Environmental Sociology after graduation and figure out what I want to do from there, likely studying social vulnerability or biodiversity conservation. I took GEOG 347 in the fall and we worked a lot with ArcGIS. I struggled with this class because I had no background knowledge or experience with GIS so I am excited to learn more about the software without the stress of trying to figure it out as I go. 

Schuurman Chapt

er 1: I had not heard of GIS before coming to OWU but it’s incredible just how many ways it can be utilize

d and how vast its reach is. I had no idea how much controversy surrounded GIS as far as how it’s regarded, whether as an extension of mapping or as a tool for quantitative analysis. I was previously unfamiliar with many of the terms used in this article including the terms GIScience and GISystems. Geographic Information Science is the science behind the GIS software and is the study of geographic information, focusing on theories, methods, and technologies. GISystems are the software and hardware used to collect, store, analyze, and display data. 

In GEOG 347 we used GIS to analyze rates of deforestation over an area in Guatemala. Our data went back to 1970 so it was cool to see the evolution in quality from then to 2025. Images from 1970 were nearly unusable because of how fuzzy they were. We also used GIS to analyze temperatures in central Ohio to study the Columbus urban heat island. I had no idea how wide the range of applications for this framework is and that it initially gained appreciation in the architectural community.  I greatly appreciate just how versatile GIS is and how many contexts it can be applied in. GIS has gained traction in so many disciplines and communities that I am sure I will have an opportunity to use these skills in my future career. I am grateful to have this opportunity to learn how to use this software as it is a great ability to possess for the field I plan to go into.

GIS Application 1: GIS can be used to analyze flood prone areas to aid in disaster mitigation and predict future flooding events. This study researched flood preparedness in Thailand, specifically in the elderly population. 

https://doi.org/10.3390/w14081268 

 

GIS Application 2: This study used GIS to monitor animal and habitat biodiversity. They used GIS because it accommodates large varieties of spatial and attribute data. Data on species and habitat distribution from different dates allow monitoring of the location and the extent of change.

https://doi.org/10.1006/jare.2001.0887 

Hello my name is Jack Payne, I am a senior here who is hopefully graduating in the spring! I am a business management major with a environmental studies minor with more of my personal interests laying in the envs minor. I am from Clintonville in Columbus, Ohio and have lived there my whole life but I have traveled a good bit through school to Italy, Patagonia in Chile, and out west on backpacking trips. Im excited for this class so I can learn the skills necessary to understand and use GIS incase it ends up being something I use in my post grad years.

 

Schuurman Chapter 1

I found this reading very engaging and insightful into the history and development of GIS programming. I have little to no prior experience with GIS and so my initial understanding of it was that it was used as a mapping software to create physical maps that represented various data inputs for geography and similar fields of study. However, from reading this chapter I now know it is so much more than just this. I liked that the author gave much of the theoretical processes behind why GIS came to be and what struggles and innovations allowed for GIS to evolve from hand done cartography which helped me understand why and how GIS software should be used. I learned that GIS software alone is not a one stop shop for theoretical problem solving but rather a tool to pair with human understanding of all the other nuances that affect a given issue. I also learned that GIS has an almost infinite amount of applications in our life, with the most interesting to me being its uses in agricultural transportation mapping as I would never imagine this being an application of GIS. I feel that the author in this chapter clarifies a lot of confusing topics about what GIS is effective for and what it should be used for and draws a sort of framework for its capabilities of data representation. The examples of GIS’ implications in farming are good examples of this as it shows many small areas where GIS can help such as identifying areas of a field that are not growing, but it has its limitations in these applications too which often is the point when human understanding and problem solving comes in to create a solution. Overall I found that this chapter gave me a very strong baseline understanding of what GIS is and how it can be used which will be crucial for this class.

 

The first application of GIS I looked into was its use in Paris during Covid to create a “15 minute city” bike network that allows people in the city to have safe bike transport anywhere across the city. I personally have used this network and it is an amazing feat of urban transportation in a city with a massive population. GIS was used in this to over lay cycle path data with subway data and road ways to create a map that is fast, safe and effective for urban transportation via bike or scooter or other wheeled transportation.

This image is slightly smaller than the one I found as I could not zoom out on the website to get the whole picture but this represents the bike ways overlayed with subway lines (https://www.apur.org/en/open-data-maps/open-data/cycling-facilities-paris-and-greater-paris#:~:text=By%202023%2C%20the%20metropolitan%20cycling,de%20rencontre%E2%80%9D%20and%20pedestrian%20areas.)

 

The second application I chose to look into was the use of GIS mapping in Patagonia to understand and help with wildlife movement, I chose this as I have worked with rewilidng chile and some of these things were things we talked about but GIS was never mentioned so I wanted to see how it was used. What I found is that GIS was used to help create the Ruta de los Parques which is a 1,700 miles of connected wilderness that spans across 17 national parks. This is a “route” that insures that wildlife that move across these areas can do so safely without reaching dead ends or man made blockages. I found this super interesting because some of our volunteer work we did in Patagonia was removing barbed wire fences from old farmers had put in place for livestock grazing which is now inhibiting the movement of native species that migrate from valley to valley such as the Guanacos. It is super cool to know that GIS mapping is almost like the over arching program used to put all these small plans into place to solve this issue.

(https://rewildology.com/chiles-route-of-parks-of-patagonia-how-1700-miles-of-connected-wilderness-is-revolutionizing-conservation/#:~:text=I%20had%20all%20these%20maps,way%20down%20to%20Cape%20Horn.) website used to get some of the genral info along with using meta to help me understand the application of GIS with this issue.

I also finished the quiz.

 

Introduction: Hello, my name is Henry Uible. I am from Jupiter, Florida, and Dothan, Alabama. I am majoring in history and minoring in geology. With a background in history and geography, I plan to teach or work in national parks; hopefully, this class and working with GIS will give me an advantage in getting jobs in these areas. I am new to using GIS and all that entails, but I am very eager to learn and get started.

 

 

Reading: It’s interesting to see that college students are lining up to take GIS classes, and that GIS software is generating significant revenue. It’s also interesting how GIS got started in the 60s by some dude using a map to figure out how to build a road that would help his community. It’s interesting to see that when GIS was first being developed, people doubted its usefulness and questioned whether it would benefit many. Sounds like every government around the 1980s wanted to build a GIS system to compile data. It is interesting to see how GIS is used, especially in the modern day. It’s also interesting that it’s not just scientists and students who are studying geography or using GSI for. In the reading, it stated that even farmers and. People doing landscaping use GSI to make sure they’re not damaging the environment by cutting down trees and that they’re growing their crops in the right place to ensure continued crop growth. One of the figures in the reading shows the historical context of cholera breaking out in London in 1854, which is really interesting to see because you can point out where major outbreaks occurred, where specific outbreaks could have been sealed off to save more people, and where particular wells were found to contain cholera, with this diagram. I think I’d also be able to show us many things for medical research, including where major outbreaks could occur and where we could quarantine specific areas. A map like this might also help paramedics and police officers determine where more medical assistance is needed in a city or town, as well as the fastest route to the area that needs it most. One of the takeaways from this was that GIS is not just for scientists; it is for everyone, and everyone can use it.

Historians are using GSI to understand better how battles unfold and why specific tactics were used, particularly when they occurred a couple of hundred years ago, when the terrain around them was destroyed by erosion or other Means. Well, GSI is also used to determine distance by looking at travel-related items from the ancient world shown in the first image. It shows how long a trip from Rhodes to many other parts of ancient Greece and the Mediterranean would have taken. Second image, they’re showing off the bombing of London from the German attacks, specifically during World War 2 of, where all the bombs were explicitly dropped on London. 

I also took the quiz

 

Using Landsat Imagery to Find Shipwrecks – Geography Realm

About: Bomb Sight – Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb Census

My name is Mia Butte, I am a freshman at OWU who is planning on doing a double major in Film and Biology (possible to change to Environmental or Earth Science). I am highly interested in Paleontology so I wished to study Geology- but as it’s not offered anymore, I plan on taking similar courses with an alternate major to fulfill this interest. I am a commuter from Lewis Center, and have a passion for all creative arts as well as evolutionary and paleosciences. I hope that I can find ways to bridge art and science during my time at Wesleyan.

After reading the chapter the biggest takeaway for me, in connection with my interests, is the direct use for archeological sites and research. This was both something I knew about when entering the class, and the main reason why I decided to learn the skill. That being said, the reading provided much more information as to what GIS actually is and how it’s used as a tool. I learned that GIS sort of developed through technological evolution- that GIS was developed as a collective of similar research from many different locations. It also wasn’t initially made with Geography in mind, but rather for Architecture and population censuses, which I thought was interesting. One thing that surprised me was how many different uses the system has, spanning across all kinds of fields and daily encounters. I didn’t realize it was something that was actually used every day rather than for specialized projects/ research. For example, city development plans have to account for where certain buildings and facilities are built, using GIS and data points to map out the best areas for construction. But it can also be used to map out GPS and routes on everyone’s phones/ vehicles. It’s also interesting that there are so many different interpretations of GIS, between being GISystems vs. GIScience (and viewing it with a scientific approach), and many opinions on the “correct” definition or use. Whatever the opinion is, it remains the fact that GIS has many different levels to it, varying between each field of use. To put it simply, GIS is the visualization of data, turning tables and numbers into easily understandable maps. Most people I told about this class were confused and said GIS was something that they had never heard of before. They might recognize a map or GIS application, without understanding its meaning or use towards their lives. This chapter helped me develop a deeper understanding of these systems myself so that I can better explain its concept and uses to those who are initially confused, but interested in learning more.

GIS Applications:

I have always found it interesting that there have been bear sightings in Ohio, considering the landscape here. This GIS map report shows the amount of sightings since 1993, and the regions they can be found in.

Link: https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/ohiodnr.gov/documents/wildlife/wildlife-management/blackbearreport.pdf 

Similar to the last application, this map follows sightings of an animal thought to have been extinct in Cleveland since the 1800s, but has recently made a comeback.

Link: https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/fisher-spotted-on-cleveland-metroparks-trail-camera-animal-hasnt-been-seen-in-cuyahoga-county-in-200-years 

Lastly, I completed the quiz!

Yes, I did take the quiz.

I go by Gustav but my boring name is Samuel. I am an english major who is taking this class as an upper level Gen Ed.

I found the chapter to be very interesting.  When I was given the introduction to this class I had ben informed of the multi-disciplinary applications this knowledge could have but reading the chapter really put things into perspective for me, as the chapter seemingly had a way to trace nearly every sector of out lives back to GIS applications. I especially found the passages regarding the applications for precision farming and for utility companies to be particularly interesting given that I feel those are sectors of life that most people don’t give much of a second glance at in day to day life and it is very enlightening to see just how much work goes into these fields using GIS alone all for the common man to simply ignore them on the basis of “out of sight, out of mind”.

I think my biggest takeaway fro the chapter was the knowledge on the subject of GIS itself. My first impressions as someone who had never seen that acronym before was that was the name of a commonly used computer program sed to conduct geographical analysis in a similar way to how business students are taught to use Microsoft Excel or how Engineering students are taught with Autodesk Inventor. Upon reading more (and coming across the interesting history of GIS dating back to the 19th century which I found to be absolutely fascinating) I found out that my initial assumption was quite wrong and that GIS is much more of a scientific field in itself given the vast ways geographical data could be gathered and interpreted.

 

The main application I am curious about is Geographical Criminal Profiling. I have a minor interest in criminology (though I have received no formal education on the matter) and GCP is very commonly used in many criminal investigations.

Source: https://atlas.co/gis-use-cases/geographic-profiling/

Something I think would be interesting to do in this class is using the GIS software I could create a geographical profile of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in the autumn of 1888. I find most maps on the subject (below) tend to be rather unenlightening and not particularly interesting for nerds like me as they tend to include many non-canonical events in their analysis  (The map I have included in this post from Wikimedia commons is one of the worst offenders in my opinion) and I personally would like to see one based much more in the facts rather then the insane amount of theories.

 

1. My name is Akiilah Whitfield, I’m a first year student at Ohio Wesleyan. I plan to double major in Environmental Science and Zoology with a minor in Astronomy. I’m excited to take this class and learn more about GIS and how it relates to my fields of study while simultaneously learning new skills that will benefit me in the future. I have interests in reading, playing the guitar, baking, building lego sets, and sometimes watching NatGeo nature documentaries. In the future I hope to possibly get my doctorate in  a specialized environmental science field that is focused on animals and conservation. I want to do field research in the tropics and other densely populated vegetation places. I plan to stay in Ohio for my undergrad and then move to a new state or country when getting my masters and doctorate. I’m really excited to continue this class and learn more!

 

2. Through reading chapter 1, I was able to get a more clear and concise understanding of what GIS was, and what important role it serves as a means for mapping with the use of technology and science as well as the way different people and groups interpret it. I learned that GIS is a widespread tool used for different fields like public health, urban planning, agriculture, marketing, transportation, environmental planning, and more. The growth of GIS out sees some people’s understanding of it and its social implications. As stated before, GIS means different things to different people: for researchers its used for a scientific approach while for city planners and other people in the field, it’s more of a platform that answers questions like “where”. This makes GIS lack a single defined identity which causes tension and a lack of understanding within the geography field. GIS first appeared in the 1960’s paired with advances in computing and quantitative geography. One word that I learned in the reading was “spatial overlay”, which was defined by Ian McHarg as different layers of spatial information that are analyzed together. Early GIS was disregarded and referred to as the inferior computerized cartography because it didn’t have the same kind of aesthetic quality of hand-drawn maps, overlooking the true power that it had. GIS came from cartography, surveying, landscape architecture, statistics, and computer science. There was the argument between if GIS is, or is not linked to quantitative revolution. Other groups believe that GIS goes beyond quantitative methods because it incorporates institution and visualization. GIs has the ability for people to view spatial patterns which in turn makes analysis more accessible and interpretive as opposed to just being numbers. I also learned about GISystems and GIScience. GISystems is software, hardware, and procedures that are used to collect, store, analyze, and display data. GIScience is seen as the foundation of GIS which examines how spatial data is modeled, classified, analyzed, and visualized.

GIS Application 1:

This map shows tracking and monitoring of animals and farm livestock through sensors attached to the animals used for monitoring herds that are long distance or farther away. This specific study is an experimental trial with a custom-device fit for a collar and took place in two different grazing areas in different zones territorially. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844024091977 

 

GIS application 2:

The second GIS map that I chose is related to Tasmanian Devils and the tumor disease that they were, and still are developing, killing a large portion of the population. Through GIS scientists learned that the animals would eat roadkill or other food that gave them the disease, and then would communicate with other animals that would also eat the food and in turn, also get sick. The map helps scientists understand threats to the population that killed the animals which they then investigate, helping to boost the number of Tasmanian Devils while keeping the number of infections low.  

https://science.sandiegozoo.org/science-blog/mapping-devils-playground-boosting-populations-gis 

5. I finished the quiz!

 

 

I am Henry Isaacs a Quantitative Economics and Data Analytics Major. I enjoy the outdoors and being on the water especially when I am fishing. I also play baseball here at OWU.

Schuurman Chapter 1:

With no prior knowledge on GIS, reading this chapter I quickly realized that it is far more than a mapping technology. What I took away most strongly is the idea that GIS creates dynamic maps that aren’t fixed on a page but can be queried, layered, updated, and reinterpreted depending on the question being asked. This flexibility makes GIS feel less like a static representation of the world and more like an analytical tool. You can zoom in, turn layers on and off, change classifications, or run spatial analyses, and each of those choices reshapes what the map reveals.

The chapter’s explanation of the two core data models, the vector and raster, also helped ground the technical side of GIS. Vector data, with its points, lines, and polygons, captures discrete features like buildings or roads, while raster data represents continuous surfaces such as elevation or temperature. Understanding these models made it clear why GIS is so versatile: it can represent both the things we can point to on a map and the environmental conditions that surround them.

Another major theme I took from the reading is that GIS is deeply shaped by human judgment. Decisions about what to map, how to classify data, where to draw boundaries, or which layers to include all reflect choices made by people. GIS isn’t neutral it contains assumptions, priorities, and sometimes power. This kind of surprised me because although most human generated things contain errors it seems they are hardly mentioned or don’t effect the final result very much.

Finally, the chapter highlights the wide range of applications, from environmental management to business logistics, or even emergency response. The idea that GIS can help responders identify evacuation routes, assess risk zones, or allocate resources shows how large of an impact this technology has that I hardly knew existed.

Overall, GIS is widely applicable and I am interested in learning more about it.

GIS Application 1:

https://ohiodnr.gov/business-and-industry/services-to-business-industry/gis-mapping-services/gis-mapping-services

Something that I am interested in and I found that GIS has a large application to is recreational fishing. I found a map given by the ODNR showing fishing depths and locations in Lake Erie around where I live.

GIS Application 2:

https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=340969acd47a4e2ca70a24d1c8f32f0b 

I also found that GIS can be used for inspecting water quality. I even found the area where the water I use at my house comes from. I could look at the quality of it and where that drinking water goes out to.

Quiz completed.