Hello. My name is Ben Lindley and I am a sophomore. Unfortunately I don’t really have any good pictures of me so this is the best I could do.

One thing I found interesting about the reading is that GIS is used in everyday life. It affects millions of people in a number of ways. What we eat and where it comes from as well as how we get to certain places all rely on GIS. GIS is also very important with urban life. I also found it interesting that GIS is not only rooted in computer labs in the mid twentieth century. There have been attempts made in the nineteenth century to automate calculations for example in the 1890 census. The reading also gives a good visual about the cholera outbreak in London in 1854. Because of this Dr John Snow was able to make the connection between water pumps and the spread of cholera. I googled GIS applications on navigation and found out that GIS enhances navigation in many ways. One big example of GIS in navigation is Google Maps. It helps with mapping and visualization. GIS excels at creating interactive maps. It also helps with urban planning and management to analyze traffic patterns, identify congestion points, and optimize transportation infrastructure. This contributes to smoother traffic flow and improved public transportation efficiency. One thing that surprised me the most was that GIS is used in drone navigation. I also googled GIS Applications in Cleveland and found that GIS is used in neighborhood planning and zoning. Here is a map on clevelandohio.gov website.

https://data.clevelandohio.gov/apps/f15dec13ee6648bcb218d4f5c8290691/explore

Hello my name is Braden Saeler. I am a junior majoring in environmental studies. I am from St Marys Ohio.

I have taken the syllabus quiz.  GIS is a very complex tool used by many for a variety of reasons ranging from being used by say archeologists to find potential dig sites. Compared to say Starbucks and potentially other large businesses using it to find the best place to put one of the buildings.  Specifically seen when talking about its inspiration and founding when maps were stacked to help show the best path of travel through terrain. Which also shows another way for it to be used showing that GIS doesn’t have its own identity but rather the intent behinds its use.  It has also greatly shown to be advanced and separating itself from simple mapping by producing a myriad of information. By being able to show elevations and land shaping as well as other details such as flora and fauna giving a much better look into what is truly there. The most important note I have read about however is what GIS can stand for. In the sense of geographical information systems commonly referred to as the Black Box.  This pertains to any and all systems including code, computers, hardware, and software.  Which is different compared to the science or GIScience as referred to in the text. I believe the separation of the two is an interesting take but possibly necessary to bring forth the thought of how for instance the spatial density of poverty in a city is computed instead of simply going along with this computer just makes everything accurate. As well as, asking questions  such as how a certain model holds up in another environments as used in the text how a hydrological model would hold up in a glacial biome compared to the wetlands it was used in. Overall a very interesting read in how GIS has come to be and how it has influenced so much of our lives without us even realizing it.

The first example of GIS I looked into would be Ash trees which I have been very interested about especially with how few healthy trees are left after facing an invasive species (the emerald ash borer).  I used Gemini to search for GIS what was provided was it mentioned how invaluable GIS is for species like the Ash trees found naturally in America in tracking previous sightings with the Emerald Ash Borer or EAB. With first being able to map out all Ash trees in a given location. Then providing extremely specific details on said trees for example exact measurements of the tree, if its health, previous treatment, and signs of epicormic shoots or signs of stress in any or all of the trees.  This further proves to be invaluable by being able to easily determine the risk factor of any of the trees to help contain the beetle. Allowing the correct response to be taken to either help or contain said trees in any given area.

https://apnews.com/article/f1e4351ae7f64bc7b278a4e3a533172a

Another study I found interesting using GIS was conducted on something called food deserts. Which is where an area of people have little to no access to fresh or general foods for homes. The study highlighted how covid had truly shown how prevalent these areas are restricting homes availability so good nutritious meals or just in general food to keep stocked at home. They used GIS to help map these food deserts and show how we as a society have left something so detrimental to small communities and impoverish households to run rampant.

Using Local Knowledge to Better Map Food Deserts

Hello! My name is Ava Johnson, and I am a senior majoring in East Asian Studies. I have no computer science or environmental sciences major or minor . I just had a fun time taking the second module of this course a year ago and figured I would do it again, just in reverse order!

Here are two pictures of me because I thought the first one was hilarious. My friends that I had made while studying abroad in Japan and we decided to go on a 3am convenience store run, just because. Second picture is me in my dorm residence bathroom (was a great place for selfies lol).

Taking this course after taking the second module first a year ago is a bit entertaining and funny to me now that I really think about it. Having said that, it was interesting reading the first chapter, along with taking the syllabus quiz, as I began reflecting on everything I have already learned and applying that to this course as well. Starting off, the chapter was pretty straightforward in terms of  a clear and concise introduction of the overview of the history of GIS and the different transformations it has made over the years. As I learned last year, yet still touched upon in this chapter, GIS is a lot more than maps or charts, and can allow for creativity to run wild once you truly become comfortable with the applications and layers. It was really cool to see so many large corporations, businesses and even states, counties and cities that utilize GIS in different ways. For example, here in Delaware, OH, different snow and ice area priorities are mapped using functions on GIS, along with climate patterns in completely separate areas around the world.

Application 1: I wanted to look at the different areas in Delaware, OH, where snow and ice removal have higher priorities as everyone can become more agitated once snowfall occurs with either how quickly or rather, not quick enough, snow removal comes through in different areas.

https://codgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/minimalist/index.html?appid=6e24626fa5544073b7d93b2676ce1aac

Application 2: I took a look at World BioClimates that factored influence of distribution of plants and animals

https://climate-arcgis-content.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/5826b14592ab4ebc99574919165bd860/explore?location=0.017175%2C0.000000%2C1.69

Hi, my name is Hektor and I’m a senior (sort of) (returning after some time off) double majoring in Fine Arts and Environmental Studies. My art education here is  mostly in jewelry/metals but we don’t have that now so I’m doing photography and crocheting on the side. As for the environment I’m interested in the social science of how culture leads us to impact the world, especially with our attitudes towards plants. I have an interest in invasive plants and what we define as “weeds” as well. I don’t have a good full body picture right now and I’m always changing up my hair and whatnot so I just have a selfie for now!

I took the quiz and it was fine, and then read the reading, which answered some of my questions and raised others. First of all I was confused as to how GIS even worked but the description of the pre-computer layered maps with tissue paper made it make more sense to me. Right off the bat the chapter mentions Starbucks using GIS and I have to imagine that most other companies with any kind of multiple locations would use it to track the most profitable locations as well, and controlling the flow of money is social control from monopolies (even, maybe especially from a coffee shop). I wonder how much the use of GIS for things like tracking property values, education, and crime is used to either uphold or fight against housing and education discrimination. One other thing I thought about a lot was the manipulation of data. You can have hard statistics that say one thing, but by organizing them a certain way in an infographic or a GIS layer you can make someone believe the opposite. Making data intuitive to people who don’t have a background in statistics can be a blessing or a curse if that data is manipulated by the wrong people. Another thing the chapter touched on were the two fundamental problems in science: some information is nearly impossible to make into quantitative data, and of course, no scientists can agree on anything. GIS begins to tackle the first problem in my opinion because by combining multiple layers of things like pollution, nature spaces, and health records, one could determine the overall health of a community in a more “human” way. Of course, if you have numbers to combine, you can make a numerical score to define that health that more people are likely to agree upon.

As I mentioned I’m interested in invasive plants and how they spread, and the density and spread of invasive plants is a good indicator of the overall health of a natural environment. I live in Columbus, which has a lot of urban forest spaces that unfortunately have a problem with several invasive species, especially honeysuckle. I grew up hanging out in the forests by the river, so I found an Inaturalist map of my neighborhood (because I also love the idea of crowdsourced spatial analysis) and an article about the spread of honeysuckle as well.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=map&taxon_id=82342

Invasive Honeysuckles and Birds. (2023, November 28). Ohio Birds and Biodiversity. August 22, 2025, https://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2023/11/invasive-honeysuckles-and-birds.html

Hi all, my name is Luke Miller. I am currently a junior majoring in environmental science with a minor in Spanish, and I also play lacrosse. 

From the syllabus quiz and reading, I learned that the uses of GIS are vast and varied, being used for environmental, geological, economic, and even medical purposes. Along with this, GIS does not have its own fixed and secure identity, as the user determines its value and how they choose to use it, even within specific fields. For example, a marine biologist might use GIS for completely different reasons than a wildlife biologist. Another variance in the uses of GIS is that it deals with both the “why?” and “how?”, and can be used in different ways based on what the user seeks to answer or find. I enjoyed reading about the first use of GIS, which was to optimize the construction of a highway in a way that would minimally interfere with the environment, which made me wonder what percentage of highways in the US were built using GIS, as I find many of them to be inconvenient. Another concept I learned about was that spatial analysis is different from mapping, as it extracts more data from preexisting data, whereas mapping is just a presentation of existing data. I was also intrigued by the idea that people “reason” using imagery and are able to better understand spatial analysis using imagery. It is for this reason that GIS has become increasingly popular over the years, in that its applications make complex relationships easier to understand and visualize. Finally, I found Bruno Latour’s concept to be interesting in that scientific knowledge and technology must first be disputed to become legitimate. Once they are legitimized, they are then assumed to always be true. This is true with GIS, in that because it has become a legitimized technology, no one questions the validity of its findings, which is both a good and bad thing. 

I found the application of GIS to assess the water quality of lakes in my home state of Minnesota to be interesting. In a 2002 study, researchers took existing maps of lakes over a 25-year period and used GIS to correlate them with information about the surrounding areas, such as pollution, to determine the most prevalent causes of water pollution in that specific area. 

Another use of GIS I found to be interesting was a study conducted in 2009 in Indiana. This study investigated the prevalence of ticks, which are the main cause of Lyme disease, found on deer harvested from 2005-2007. All deer in this study were entered into a GIS database to find where deer ticks were most prevalent. 

Sources

Brezonik, P. L., Kloiber, S. M., Olmanson, L. G., & Bauer, M. E. (2002, May). Satellite and GIS Tools to Assess Lake Quality. Water Resources Center; The University of Minnesota. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=7c6ca4d3d77ef0b0417e3f8304f1e66427809323

Keefe, L. M., Moro, M. H., Vinasco, J., Hill, C., Wu, C. C., & Raizman, E. A. (2009). The Use of Harvested White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and Geographic Information System (GIS) Methods to Characterize Distribution and Locate Spatial Clusters ofBorrelia burgdorferiand Its VectorIxodes scapularisin Indiana. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases, 9(6), 671–680. https://doi.org/10.1089/vbz.2008.0162

Hello, I’m Dylan Patel and I’m a Jr currently majoring in Environmental Studies. I’m from Anaheim Hills near Disneyland.

Learning about GIS was spectacular. I didn’t know that GIS had so many applications in industries like Starbucks to maximize its store placement, epidemiology for identifying infectious disease clusters, and even law enforcement for crime mapping. Of all of these, epidemiology surprised me the most because I always assumed GIS was mainly for cartography and city planning.

I was also intrigued by how, in the 1950s-1960s, there was pushback against digitalization. At the time, computer-generated maps were considered crude compared to the artistry of manual cartography. Yet pioneers like Brian Berry, Waldo Tobler, and Duane Marble in the US, and Tom Waugh and Ray Boyle in the UK, pushed forward with algorithms and code that laid the foundation for spatial analysis. That persistence transformed GIS from “computerized cartography” into a powerful analytical science (Schuurman, 2004).

Connecting GIS to epidemiology is especially fascinating. A famous historical example is Dr. John Snow’s 1854 cholera map in London, where plotting deaths around contaminated water pumps revealed the true source of the outbreak. That map demonstrated how spatial visualization could unlock hidden relationships in health data. Building on that legacy, epidemiologists today use GIS to identify disease clusters, track outbreaks, and assess environmental risk factors. For example, GIS has been used to study cancer incidence in relation to toxic exposures, evaluate where infectious disease cases are concentrated, and plan interventions for public health emergencies like COVID-19. What makes GIS so powerful in this field is its ability to merge multiple layers-population density, environmental hazards, transportation routes, or healthcare access-and reveal patterns that would remain invisible in raw tables or reports. As Rushton (2003) argues, GIS provides health officials with spatial analytic tools that can improve both research and decision-making, ultimately saving lives.

Overall, Chapter 1 made me realize GIS is more than just “maps.” It is both a science and a system-one that influences how we see, organize, and act upon the world. As an environmental studies student, I can see myself using GIS not just for conservation, but also to understand how environmental health risks connect to human populations.

Source: GIS basics page, The Epidemiologist R Handbook (used for the illustrative image) EpiR Handbook

An example of how GIS is used to track the spread of diseases and relative populations.

______

Schuurman, N. (2004). GIS: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

Rushton, G. (2003). Public health, GIS, and spatial analytic tools. Annual Review of Public Health, 24, 43-56.

My name is Aiden Walz. I am a junior who just transferred from Columbus State Community College. I am from Blacklick, Ohio. I am majoring in biochemistry with a minor in environmental science. 

Picture of me after getting injected with lidocaine at the dentist.

After I took the syllabus quiz I started to read the first chapter of Nadine Schuurman GIS: A Short Introduction. This first chapter provides a wonderful introduction and insight of how GIS has impacted our lives along with providing a brief history of how GIS came to be. With Canada creating the first true operational system, drawing inspiration from people like Ian McHarg who manually mapped multiple map layers of a suburban development so he could find the most optimal route for a highway. However GIS is more than just a program to find the best routes for highways. GIS has allowed users a better means of spatial analysis especially with geographical visualizations of areas which can be highly important to not just local counties trying to lay infrastructure down but also allowing users to visualize complex data into a visual representation. GIS is also wonderful in that it’s hard to just list a single overall use as GIS is such a versatile tool that has allowed humanity to visualize these spatial entities that would be hard to view otherwise. Schuurman also does a wonderful job of showing how GIS uses quantitative data and spatial visualization to make the data more accessible and impactful in people’s everyday lives. This chapter does however leave the reader with one question; what area isn’t GIS useful for? Throughout this chapter it becomes abundantly clear that GIS is useful for a multitude of areas, ranging from agriculture to waste management, climate change to infrastructure, and even as a tool for sociologists to understand humanity itself better. In the end, this chapter showcases that GIS is not just a tool to look at land a little bit differently, but a piece of revolutionary technology that has and will continue to help humanity answer questions, solve problems, and change humanity’s outlook on the world.

Application 1: The first application I looked at was how GIS was used to map Bigfoot sightings across the United States. This map was set up mainly for visual purposes and less for analytical purposes. However it could be used to filter these sightings by geography or other variables in order to focus on one aspect of these sightings or to limit the amount of possible ‘credible sightings’. Interestingly enough, there are quite a few sightings in Florida, which is quite interesting as I don’t know how a giant beast with fur would be able to survive in the heat, and also while still remaining elusive.

Source: Geospatial Training Services, Introduction to GIS Analysis using Sasquatch Sightings

https://geospatialtraining.com/introduction-to-gis-analysis-using-sasquatch-sightings/ 

Application 2: The next application I looked at was crime per capita in Blacklick, Ohio. This map showcases the crime rate in the areas surrounding Blacklick, with more red colors indicating a higher percent of crime committed in that area. This GIS map helps illustrate the safety of the area and surrounding areas which can be helpful to home buyers, residents, and even law enforcement. This application can also further help by raising awareness of crimes and alerting the public to address safety concerns. Overall Blacklick got a B+ for safety and ranked in the 76th percentile for safety. 

Source: Crime Grade, Violent Crime in Blacklick

https://crimegrade.org/violent-crime-black-lick-oh/ 

Hello. My name is Faith Fox, and I am a sophomore. I am majoring in Environmental Science and pre-law with a French minor.

After taking the syllabus quiz and reading chapter 1, I realized how GIS was viewed and how widely accepted it has become, and all the applications it has. Also, how often we look at maps and images that have been produced via GIS technology. I do agree with Waldo Tobler’s view that spatial analysis is a means to assist graphic representation, rather than an end in itself. It is important, especially in today’s environment, to incorporate and accept the use of technology. GIS incorporates ongoing research into geographical visuals. I understand the comparison of GIS to a “black box” in the sense that it is better established, it is simply assumed to be true and good. Because of this comparison, it leads me to the question of: “Can GIS users input their own biases into their inputs to shape the output in the way that they want?” And, if that is true, what exactly is stopping those users from continuing their patterns of behavior? While very similar, there is a clear difference between GIScience and GISystems. GIScience is described as the way that we are processing this information, while the GISystems are sort of the “why” of the entire process that is GIS. I did find the fact that GIS technology can be used to predict the effect of future events with visual spatial analysis very interesting. Such as the example of a city looking towards future urban growth based on multiple factors such as density, socioeconomic indicators, geographical constraints, road networks, and present land use. Through reading this chapter, I learned the difference between simply drawing out your data and using patterns, relationships, and trends within that data to create a map, or in other words, mapping vs. spatial analysis. Through reading this chapter, I realized how many different ways GIS can be used throughout multiple professional fields.

I’m very interested in the spread of different types of pollution throughout the United States and which regions of the US are affected by different types of pollution more than others. Using GIS to map pollution allows the public to see a visual representation of real time pollution data, which can allow them to track pollution levels in their areas. Mapping pollution can also highlight vulnerable communities and how they are more likely to receive the negative effects of pollution, which can raise awareness to those vulnerable communities.

Figure 1: Map showing annual emission of volatile organic compounds across the US

Works Cited
Altaweel, Mark. “Mapping Air Pollution in the United States.” Geography Realm, 2023, https://www.geographyrealm.com/air-pollution-united-states/. Accessed 21 8 2025.
Mane, Suraj. “Leveraging GIS for Monitoring Air Quality and Pollution Levels.” Geographic Book, 2024, https://geographicbook.com/leveraging-gis-for-monitoring-air-quality-and-pollution-levels/. Accessed 21 8 2025.

Hello! I’m Kheya Datta, I’m a 3rd year B.S in Biology with a minor in ENVS. Here’s a silly little drawing of me that I drew because I dont have any good photos of myself:

I did the Syllabus Quiz and read the reading.

This introductory chapter starts by talking about the recent boom of GIS; when in the past GIS was only particularly useful to a select group of Geographers, now its used worldwide by all sorts of people from Police to Starbucks. It then discusses GIS’ history from analog to digital. The discussion of the history reminds me of my Mother; she is a Geography Masters, and partially due to the times and partially due to studying in India, she only knows analog style GIS. Then it discusses various predecessors to the modern GIS systems we know today. GIS appears to have been based around Quanitative methods of previous years, and lead to a revolution within this form of methodology in ways I’m excited to learn more about in the upcoming semester. Next it discusses GIsystems vs GIscience. GIsystems seems to me to be more useful for the everyday person; I’m sure someone studying something with GIS doesn’t want to particularly worry about GIS being faulty, and GIscience seems more useful for people trying to input their own data within GIS for deep-delves into research, beyond what is already available. It then goes into spatial data and then who uses GIS and for what. They discuss a lot of city planning and road building in this section, which fascinates me. My limited experience with GIS is solely in the physical geography, specifically hydrology amongst rivers, so it’s interesting to learn how GIS is used in the urban side of things as well. The mention of how GIS gets its data does make me wonder how GIS has been used in a political light, especially in our day and age.

I’m really interested with Harmful Algae Blooms with my work, so I’ve found the NOAA Harmful Algae Blooms website for perusing. HABSOS can be used to predict upcoming Harmful Algae Blooms in the Gulf of Mexico (if it blooms last year it’ll probably bloom this year) and for the tech savvy consumer it could be a very good source for if there’s currently a harmful algae bloom. One of the things it tracks is Microcystins, a really bad toxin, so if a beach-goer sees thats high they can make the safe decision to not go.

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (2014). Physical and biological data collected along the Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coasts in the Gulf of America as part of the Harmful Algal Blooms Observing System from 1953-08-19 to 2024-03-25 (NCEI Accession 0120767). NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/0120767. Accessed 8/21/2025.

Hello, my name is Jocelyn Inderhees and I am a sophomore. I am majoring in zoology, pre-med, and environmental science with a minor in chemistry.

Through reading chapter one of the textbook, I realized the influence and how big GIS is compared to what I originally thought. Prior to this text I believed that GIS was more of a type of mapping software and now I am aware of the fact that it is more of a flexible spatial awareness software. GIS has many uses and that change depending on how it is used. The software can be used to help a business such as Starbucks to decide where to build the new locations for the best profit and what helps the business prosper based on location. It can also be used to help a city to figure out zoning ordnances or data for properties and many other uses. What took me by surprise the most was that GIS is not one fixed identity but many. It is more than a software it is a form of analysis and a science. GIS is very versatile for its uses. The history of GIS dates back to the 1960s. I found the story with the tracing paper and the highways to be very intriguing. How he used it to find the best route by layering the data and information to better make the decisions long before the technology of today came along. Eventually it was converted to be able to be done on computers like how we do so today which gave many more the ability to do spatial analysis and the advanced forms of GIS. Another thing that stood out was the difference between mapping and spatial analysis. Mapping is showing data in a visual way while spatial analysis or GIS goes deeper into analyzing the data and discovering the relationships. This shows why GIS is so useful in many different fields such as agriculture to developing a city and more. This chapter helped me to better understand GIS and that is far more than just a simple piece of software. 

I find agriculture very interesting therefore I decided to research the distribution of cattle across the US. The map below shows there the cattle population is higher and lower. As shown the east coast and northern Midwest states have the lowest percentage while Great Plains regions have the highest concentration of population along with there being a decent amount in parts Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. You can tell where the agricultural parts of the country are, and the cattle populations reflect that. Overtime this map will change as more land becomes developed and less families have farms as the bigger companies are buying up the land and taking control of the agricultural businesses. The eastern states will overtime also lose more of their cattle while the Greater plains states will gain a higher percentage. The cattle production is clustered into certain parts. This helps with knowing what Agricultural policies to implement in different areas to help the cattle thrive and protect those in certain areas. Managing resources is also easier with this information. 

Fig 1. shows the population of beef cattle density across the US. 

Work Cited:

USDA’s Census of Agriculture, accessible via Ag Census Web Maps and downloadable county-level Excel files (NASS).

County-level figures for livestock inventory are updated every five years via the Census, with inter-census updates through “raking” to match state-level totals from agricultural surveys (NASS).

In 2022, total U.S. cattle inventory stood at ~88 million head (a 6.1% drop from 2017), with top beef cow inventory counties found in Nebraska, Nevada, and South Dakota; top cattle-on-feed counties in Texas, Kansas, California, and Nebraska (USDA NASS)