Category: Course Student Work

Chapter 1

I learned how to start making a basic map using GIS software. I practiced adding layers to a map and understanding how different layers represent different types of information, like locations, boundaries, and features. I also learned how to navigate the map, zoom in and out, and adjust how the data is displayed. I found this tutorial very easy, and starting out with Allegheny, Pennsylvania, made me feel very confident.

Chapter 2

I learned how to improve a map by using colors and symbology to represent different parts of a city. I worked on changing the appearance of map layers so that different areas were easier to see and understand. This helped show how maps can communicate information visually, not just display locations. The most challenging part for me was finding and selecting the exact colors needed for each section.

Chapter 3

I worked on creating two different maps, which made this chapter the most challenging for me. I had to repeat many of the same steps for the second map, and I often got lost trying to remember what to do next. This chapter helped me practice staying organized and understanding the full mapping process from start to finish. I also struggled with creating and formatting the title rectangles, but after some trial and error I was able to figure it out.

 

Chapter 1 Tutorials:

Chapter one focused a lot on how to navigate through the basic aspects of the Arc Gis software such as the contents bar and how the layers are oriented, the various Ribbon tabs and some of their basic functions and how to change details such as Symbology. The next focus of this chapter was introducing how to represent your data in various ways depending on its contexts. This consisted of changing basic aspects of vector data such as line color, changing how raster data can be effectively shown for various data groups, and how changing the orientation of your layers will change what a map represents. This chapter was not too hard to follow along to but it definitely was a lot of material to digest and recall in the your turn sections. I could see myself understanding what we have read about in past weeks better now that I was able to use some of the topics hands on. I also found it way more engaging when the maps were represent real studies and problems that were made more clear as I went through the steps in the chapter.

 

Chapter 2 Tutorials:

Chapter two focused a lot on how you represent the data on your maps and how this helps you tell an effective story. It discussed how to change the physical aspects of your map so that it is clean and effectively represents each area when you are zoomed in or out along with having your points represented in various icons to give a better visual comparison. This chapter also touched on 3D mapping which I found super interesting once I figured out how to properly do the steps in the program. I never expected this to be an option for representing map data and this chapter really showed me how in depth this program is and how many small things there are within the program to make sure you can effectively represent your data. I did struggle with this chapter a little more and had to redo a few steps and the vast amount of material covered between ch1 & 2 had me a little overwhelmed but as I sat with it longer it all started to click better

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Chapter 3 Tutorials:

This chapter focused on how you can share your maps and the various ways you can share your data such as charts or graphs, pdf images for presentations, or actual web pages with interactive maps. This ArcGis.com part of this chapter was my favorite because it showed one of the end goals of doing all this work which is sharing your data in a way that you see fit. I didn’t know that Gis had a webpage that integrated with the softwares data which I thought was super cool as it makes it a lot easier to go through the steps necessary to present the info. I struggled a bit when I had to go back in and share my maps on my own but figured it out in the end. Im excited to see how else we use the Gis website with other data that we look at.

Chapter 1

This tutorial was a nice introduction into how to use all the features of ArcGIS, it was actually much simpler than I originally thought it would be. This chapter focused a lot on turning features on and off, toggling the contents, and basic stuff. I liked being able to walk through all the specific features, and it was very easy to absorb the material. The longest part about it was just going step by step and making sure I understood what features the chapter was describing. There were a few times where I had to go back and retrace my steps to make sure I did something correctly, but it got pretty fun after the first few pages.

I couldnt figure out how to make any of my screenshots not blurry, though, so I’ll have to go back and figure that out at some point.

 

Chapter 2:

This chapter was also pretty easy to follow. I liked getting to add color, and the sections of the map were cool to explore. The different parts of the zoning were really neat. Again, the step-by-step and the “your turn” sections helped me retain a lot of the info. I did get stuck a few times with labeling, but I just had to go back and read really carefully. I also liked how I could watch the progress of all the steps show up on the map. The tutorial 2 part also confused me because my files started to act really weird and not save anything, but I eventually figured it out. This part explained labeling features and configuring pop-ups, which I was confused by at first, but eventually I got the hang of it.

Chapter 3:

This chapter was probably the longest for me to follow along with, out of all the other tutorials. I am beginning to feel confident in figuring out GIS, even when I still do get pretty confused on certain parts of the tutorial. I mainly struggled to understand the wording, but after looking up where i got stuck, it was much easier.

 

I learned parts like how to create a story map, how to insert charts, and how to make a dashboard. When I had to get rid of the name, I also got kind of stuck. I did really like seeing all of the features in this tutorial, though. I definitely learned a lot through these tutorials, and I am glad they’re so precise!

This was all in all really cool and fun to learn about. I’m honestly just impressed with myself that I was able to get through this whole thing in one night while being sick. So from now on I will definitely be doing these at the start of the week so that if I ever catch a cold on thursday I don’t have to be sick and suffering through hours of GIS Friday night lol

 

Chapter 1

I found the straightforward walkthrough of the chapter extremely helpful in learning how to navigate the website. The chapter allowed me to navigate the different base layers and bookmarks in order to quickly access different features of the map that I needed. One key term that I found to be quite important was the word feature, which relates to a baseline quality to highlight different attributes of the map. Another would be Raster, which is an image made up of many small units called pixels, to make a much larger picture. A geodatabase is a folder that encompasses many other features and qualities of the map, which feels like an important term to know. Because of this chapter, I have become familiar with the top menu, which allows me to toggle between features in categories such as project, map, and more. It also taught me how to view the attribute table, which helps to put different boundaries into numerics, and you can even alter the formatting to show data more efficiently for your purposes. One question that had arisen for me when attempting to complete the tutorial was how to clear changes to a pre-existing column within the attribute table, as the option would become greyed out under certain circumstances. Overall, I had a positive experience with this chapter, and I appreciate how user-friendly it is. 

Chapter 2

The second chapter has helped me to better understand how to utilize the symbolism and color preferences within ArcGIS. Not only that, but it has also explained the purpose of making the features a variety of colors and symbols in order to help the viewer better understand the contents of the map. The chapter also helped me to become familiar with the different labelling options and how utilizing a variety of fonts and colors for labels helps to make the map cleaner and more organized for the viewer. One question I have is what the cutoff is for too many different types of labels, in terms of formatting? More of would the viewer be more confused by too many different types of labels? I could definitely tell with this chapter that I was getting more comfortable with going through different tabs and accessing different features on my own, which I think is partly by design of the chapter, where, at least from what I noticed, they started lessen the amount they walked me through how to do certain basic actions that I had been taught in the chapters prior. Using a big city like New York helped me to better visualize the variety of labeling that can be used, and it was helpful to learn how to toggle visibility for labels depending on the current zoom. I had become very well acquainted with the symbology tab and the different terms of single symbol, unique symbol, graduated symbols, and dot density, which all feature the same data but with different visualizations. 

Chapter 3

The third chapter delved deeper into the presentation aspect of the data, and how to do things such as format a layout to present information on a paper-like sample. I fear this was also one of the more difficult chapters thus far, as the tasks were less straightforward than those of mapping. I also found it interesting that it had also covered the aspect of creating storymaps to share with viewers. A story map is a type of online webpage that a user can post online to share map data and other topics of their choosing. One question I had when making the story map was where the catalog pane was, as within this chapter, I feel as though they were not as clear about that,t and I ended up having to look up how to find it. It also had me make a dashboard, which is another online visualization of map information, where it taught me how to create tables, pie charts, and bar charts. I found it quite interesting that I could edit so much of the map on the published online version, especially since it comes from such a large platform that a laptop typically can’t handle. The tutorial itself was mainly centered around Arts employment and cost of living wages throughout the U.S, and the clear way the data was presented made it intriguing to learn about.

Chapter 1

Chapter one introduced us to GIS and how to add projects, work with attribute tables, and change symbols and labels on maps. The chapter also taught us a few terms. A feature class is a “layer” on the map with vector data and corresponding attributes. A raster is an image made of pixels that can only be seen when zoomed in. A file geodatabase is a .gbd that stores feature classes, raster data, and other such files. A project is a .aprx that contains one or more maps and other related items. This chapter used a map with data on health care clinics, namely Urgent Care and FGHC clinics. The first tutorial went over how to apply a basemap, turn on and off and reorder layers, and export a map layout. I thought it was cool that GIS turns the map into a layout for you. The second tutorial taught us how to zoom in and out to specific features, bookmark a feature or location, and search for a specific feature. I am glad this tutorial taught us about zoom to full extent because in the last tutorial of the chapter, my map kept moving off-screen. The third tutorial went over attribute tables and summary statistics. I am still a little confused about these, but the textbook did a good job of teaching how to use them. I wish it had gone over what the acronyms, such as ZIPL, mean and what they are used for. The fourth tutorial taught us how to change symbols and labels. I am glad that the program offered so many different options for symbols, colors, and fonts. This chapter provided a very good introduction to using GIS, and as I went through the tutorials, I was able to find everything faster.

Chapter 2

In chapter two, we learned how to color-code features and change the symbols using symbology. I got a lot more comfortable with symbology in this chapter because we used it so much. We also learned how to label and use pop-ups. This chapter focused a lot on choropleth maps, which use color to represent numerical values. They use different methods, such as natural breaks and quantile classification, to display data. I was surprised at how many different colors it provides. The last thing we learned in the chapter was setting maximum and minimum scales. This allows you to only see specific labels at certain zooms, so that the map doesn’t get overcrowded with all the labels. This chapter became more vague with the instructions, which forced me to go back and review how to do certain things that I had forgotten. I am glad it did this because I got a lot more comfortable with doing certain tasks. It was really fun to get into how to make the maps look good and readable. This chapter had a lot more tutorials than the first, but I am glad because it provided a lot of examples. It was very interesting to be able to see and recognize patterns using the techniques from the tutorials, such as the relationship between food banks and people over 60 receiving food stamps.

Chapter 3

Chapter three was quite different from the first and second chapters. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others, but it was cool to put what we had made into a format that people can learn from. In this chapter, we learned how to make layouts by putting two maps with a legend and title onto a blank document. It reminded me of Microsoft Word. It was cool to not only design layouts but also a “website” where we could showcase and provide the maps and data. It made me realize how much goes into creating something that the public can use. The debris overgrowth tutorial was really fun. There were so many little steps that went into every part of this chapter, so it was a little overwhelming but also interesting. I had difficulty with the pie chart, graph, and table because they wouldn’t load, so I only saw a spinning circle, but I can imagine that it looked good. Overall, this was an extremely in-depth chapter, and I learned that I definitely enjoy working with the actual data rather than how it looks online.

Okay, so that was really fun! I found that it didn’t take long for the steps to become intuitive. Having the step-by-step tutorial took all of the guesswork out of navigation, which was so nice because ArcGIS is chock-full of important features. I also appreciated how the book would explain multiple different ways to access software features. Some were more complicated than others but knowing all of them will be helpful in the long run.

Chapter 1 Tutorial:

This chapter of the GIS tutorial introduced basic ways to navigate ArcGIS with a map of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It spent a lot of time exploring layers showing spatial distribution of FQHC clinics and “urgent care” clinics, and how they relate to population density and poverty risk areas.

I found myself making conjectures that were then confirmed by steps in the tutorial. For example, after overlaying the poverty risk area boundary with the service radii of both the FQHCs and “urgent care” clinics, I noticed that a small node of high population density and poverty risk was located outside of any health center radius. Then in the following step, the tutorial had me bookmark that area as the McKeesport Poverty Area.

Figure 1: The small red circle outlines the McKeesport Poverty Area.

After reading the first six chapters of Mitchell, I was nervous to do work with tables in ArcGIS because they seemed complicated. However, when all the information was supplied, I didn’t think it was difficult at all. I got used to sorting and editing field views quickly.

Figure 2: The census tract with the highest density in Allegheny County of 29,493 people per square mile.

I noticed that this area is only 0.075 square miles, which is really small! Looking at the tract area in square miles was helpful, because I initially envisioned 29,000 people living in that small area. I needed to keep in mind that the map measures population DENSITY, not raw population.

Chapter 2 Tutorial:
This tutorial chapter focused on a map of New York City and studied distribution of features like food facilities, people reliant on food stamps, and schools. Working with colors in this section was fun! I was able to familiarize myself with symbology with different shapes, graduated sizes, and color shading of map parcels.

Figure 1: graduated symbols for Number of Food Banks/Soup Kitchens (yellow) and Under 18 Receiving Food Stamps (purple) overlaid on a map of Over Age 60 Receiving Food Stamps in the Bronx. 

At first, I was a bit confused during Tutorial 2-5. At first, the purple graduated symbols were overlapping and overshadowing the yellow symbols. So, I moved “Number of Food Banks/Soup Kitchens” to the top of the Contents pane, and now I could see these yellow symbols outlined by the “Under 18 Receiving Food Stamps” purple symbols in the Bronx neighborhood. I noticed that, in the neighborhoods with more than 11,595 people over 60 on food stamps (in dark blue), there are also thousands of people under 18 on food stamps (larger purple symbols). And now that we can see the number of food banks/soup kitchens on top of the purple dots, we notice that there are small proportions of food facilities (in yellow).

In Tutorial 2-8, I appreciated the emphasis on definitions of large-scale and small-scale maps. Basically, the smaller the ratio, the smaller the scale, and the more zoomed-out the map will be. I’m still kind of developing the intuition for this, but while assigning feature layers visibility ranges, I was able to repeat this process without heavily consulting the tutorial.

Figure 2: A zoomed-out, small-scale view (1:47,409) of Manhattan. Visibility range for schools and neighborhoods is turned off.

Figure 3: Zoomed in, large-scale (1:19,419) view of Lower Manhattan. Visibility ranges for neighborhoods and schools (black dots) turned on.

Chapter 3 Tutorial:

This chapter focused on developing maps to share with the public on ArcGIS Online, with ArcGIS Story Maps and Dashboards. I have stumbled upon Story Maps before while doing research for other classes, and they seem to be pretty effective ways to present and discuss data!

In Tutorial 3-1, snapping the separate images of maps and legends onto the layout was so satisfying. The Guidelines feature was incredibly helpful, and it is going to inspire me to look for a similar feature in software I use for other classes.

Tutorial 3-3 demonstrated how to build ArcGIS StoryMaps. I found the editing interface of ArcGIS StoryMaps to be very intuitive. I probably made some minor formatting errors—there seemed to be a lot of white space—but for the most part, formatting text, maps, and images was pretty straightforward.

Figure 1: The Cost of Living Index map within the ArcGIS StoryMap. 

I liked how the tables and map information scrolled by while the map image remained on the screen. This layout makes comparisons on one screen super easy!

Tutorial 3-4 focused on turning maps and their data into interactive Dashboards. I found this software to be pretty easy to use as well, but I didn’t like it as much as StoryMaps.

Figure 2: completed Ground Crew Dashboard showing requests for debris and overgrowth removal. It is currently zoomed in on the Spring Hill City view, so the bar graph, pie chart, and table are showing data within this view alone.

The tutorials in this chapter emphasized the importance of creating effective map pop-ups as well. A person who will be using the map is going to want to be able to select areas of interest and receive all the information they need in a pop-up: nothing more, nothing less. The table in Figure contains all the fields that will show up in the pop-up when the user clicks on a specific green circle on the map.

 

Chapter 1

Working through the tutorials has really helped me put these concepts into practice. One area that I struggled with in Chapter one was creating a bookmark. I went through all of the steps several times and it would intermittently allow me to create a new bookmark. I learned how to open and manage a project, explore the map view, and use essential interface components such as the ribbon, Catalog pane, and Contents pane. This chapter also helped me understand different types of data, including vector and raster data, and how layers are organized within a map. Learning how to pan, zoom, and identify features improved my ability to explore geographic information. Overall, Chapter One built a strong foundation by helping me understand both the theory behind GIS and the basic tools needed to begin working in ArcGIS Pro.

Chapter Two

This chapter focused on changing the symbolization on maps and the labels. My favorite part of this chapter was the 3D scenes. I struggled a little with the visibility features and how to make some visible and then not visible when the map was zoomed in and out. I learned about adding data layers, examining attribute tables, and using selection tools to analyze geographic features. I learned how to query data using attributes and location to answer specific questions.

Chapter 3

In this chapter I made some maps and shared my maps. I also used the online version of ArcGIS. The online version makes these maps interactive.  The tutorial taught me how to add and symbolize different data layers, adjust map layouts, and interpret attribute tables to understand geographic information more clearly. I also learned about selecting features, buffering, and querying data to analyze spatial relationships. An important takeaway was understanding coordinate systems and why consistent projections are essential for accurate mapping. Overall, the tutorial helped me see how GIS can be used to visualize, analyze, and solve real-world problems. It helped me be more efficient in ArcGIS Pro.

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.

Chapter 1:

This chapter was not very difficult as I have used most of these features before. Instructions were generally easy to understand but I did have some issues with buttons being greyed out (among other things) when I was told to click on them. I am sure this is due in part to user error. I had other issues like things not appearing that were supposed to. I like that they go through a lot of the features just to show us how to use them and turn them off so we know where they are and how to use them. I like that we can toggle different layers to get different mixes of information. 

Chapter 2: 

I had more issues with this chapter. For example, it says “In the Contents pane, drag Over Age 60 Receiving Food Stamps above the 3D Layers heading.”, which is impossible because Over Age 60 Receiving Food Stamps is a subheading of 2D (again, I was probably just doing this wrong). I like how many different ways there are to customize your map and make it accessible. 

Chapter 3: 

I could not get the text box to work for some reason, I couldn’t figure out how to write in it, I tried in multiple places. I also could not figure out how to get the ruler to work. I like how many options for map elements and surroundings we have. The instructions for all three chapters were confusing and at times difficult to follow. 

Chapter 1:

Chapter 1 was overall not very difficult, there were a few hiccups at the beginning just getting used to the software and where everything is located in the UI. The instructions were at times vague and difficult to follow for someone who has never used this software before, but were at least substantial enough to get by with.

Chapter 2:

This chapter was significantly more difficult than the previous chapter. I really struggled following the instructions on the ‘your turn’ sections. There were a few times when I could not understand what the instructions wanted me to do/where to find the UI elements they were referring to. Most chapters were not too difficult, but I wish the instructions would have been clearer at points.

Chapter 3:

I was not as confused on this chapter on the whole, but on the first tutorial I got hung up on some of the ruler directions and didn’t really understand what they wanted. Other than that, it was a pretty simple chapter that I didn’t have too much trouble following. I felt like I was better able to follow the ‘your turn’ sections in this part. I can tell that I am getting better at navigating this software from just these 3 chapters, so hopefully I won’t have as much trouble in the next assignments.