O’Neill Week 1

Hello all, my name is Adam and I am majoring in Psychology and Data Analytics. I have never taken a class on geography before, but I love satellites and playing Geoguessr so I figured this would be a fun class!

While poking around my ArcGIS profile I found out that qualified institutions (and their students) like OWU get discounts through the Esri Nonprofit Organization Program. Meaning the cost of the accounts for the students taking this class isn’t as abhorrent-seeming, at $4,200 for the general consumer.

In Get Started: What Is ArcGIS Online I gained a general understanding of ArcGIS and its different capabilities. I didn’t understand a lot of the course, but considering how much ArcGIS can do, I can see why.

I then took ArcGIS Online Basics and completed it. This little course was a lot of fun and showed me hands-on how to manipulate the software in a few ways, like navigating the menus and utilizing bookmarks. It also taught me most of the lingo I think I’ll need to know. I also saw some Esri instructor-led courses that seemed to cost a large amount of money (i.e. a $960 for a course that lasts the length of an 8-hour workday)

I then searched up “ArcOnline forest” on Google Scholar (because I figured ArcOnline had some environmental applications and like forests) and came upon an article on siting for wind power which I found interesting. The image is a map of areas in the Southeast where wind power capacity can be installed with minimal disruption to wildlife and sensitive ecosystems, showing that ample land remains available for wind energy development despite the Southeast’s limited wind power development due to poor wind resources, competing energy sources, and political opposition, advancements in turbine technology and the growing demand for renewable energy suggest that significant wind development is possible in the region.

I then found a publication that used ArcGIS online to show its capabilities in the field of Natural Resources Management. I thought the article was pretty interesting, here is an image of ArcGIS that they included: