My name is Carsyn Hagans, and I’m a sophomore biology and environmental science major! I just got done with GIS 291, so I’m excited to see how this course goes.
When I was poking around ArcGIS, I noticed that it has links to a lot of different apps, and I remember from last semester that ArcGIS Online can be used for a variety of things. Also, there appears to be a pretty big online community that uses ArcGIS Online, and when I opened up the Blog and the Forum, there were a lot of posts and information about GIS, which would be helpful to anyone using the website that had questions.
When I looked through the Getting Started section, I noticed that while ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online seem to have similar features, ArcGIS Online looks a little more modern and user-friendly, in my opinion. Because the online version can be done on a laptop, it is also nice to know I can use the Macbook keyboard shortcuts that I am used to. Another thing that I found interesting in the Getting Started section was the How to Visualize Weather section. This section talks about the different ways you can manipulate your scenes to show different weather effects, which seems like a very cool feature. Throughout this entire section, I mainly learned that there are so many ways to use ArcGIS Online to reach a diverse audience.
When I completed the intro course, a lot of it was either similar to how we created maps in 291, so I remembered it well, or I remembered it slightly from when we actually used ArcGIS Online. It was interesting to learn about some of the more specific ways that you can share web maps with specific people or groups, and it is nice that the Sharing tool is easy to manipulate. Also, it was interesting to see how ArcGIS Online is a little more limited in its capabilities than Pro, but it is still a very useful tool. Here’s my certificate 🙂
One interesting way I found (on Google) that people have used ArcGIS Online is to map the distributions of reefs. Because reefs are so sensitive to temperature changes, lots of organizations are keeping a close eye on their health. People have used ArcGIS Online to map how reefs have become bleached and what their current conditions are. This is very useful for scientists or conservationists because it allows them to target their conservation efforts to one location that is at the most risk. Interestingly, I found a live feed of coral reef bleaching incidences that an organization keeps up to date with NOAA data!
https://hub.arcgis.com/maps/26e71d14067c4b3f8dd31d1a4e008cfb/about
Additionally, I found that ArcGIS Online can be used to share maps of animal distributions and populations. Specifically, I looked up the distribution and population density of sea otters, but I’m sure there are many different maps that show how other species are distributed as well. I think this kind of information could be useful for a wide variety of people, from undergraduate students to researchers. These kinds of interactive maps can even be used in schools or museums when giving lessons on certain organisms!
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=f631c975b1e348d89961eddc13b498a5
