Author: srmeyst

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 was a fairly short tutorial, dealing mainly with uploading content from ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Online. With my experience from GEOG 291, I found it fairly easy to naviagte, as a previous section of the ArcGIS Pro textbook had us accomplish the very same task of uploading raster and vector layers. Even with the fact the data is deprecated, I did not have any issues with the data in ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Online, only giving me a brief warning when I tried to save the project, and briefly freezing as it loaded. The second half of the chapter reintroduces story maps, specifically to compare and contrast the differences between raster and vector layers. It is fairly easy to tell once zoomed into the map, as raster layers lose detail when you zoom in close enough, about the county or city level. Additionally, I was able to play around with the features of the StoryMap a little, and ended up adding a quiz at the end when prompted with which layer is which.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was far more in depth, dealing mainly with creating dashboards and how to accurately display time in ArcGIS Online. With all of the factors that went into the dashboard, I found it fun to assemble, and interesting to learn of the criminal history of an area I do not live in. Additionally, the dashboard was an interesting look into what GIS can accomplish for police work and programs and wbesites for concerned families of a certain area, or people trying to view the crime rates of a potential new city to live in. I tried to attempt the coding section by hand, but after multiple attmepts, I copy-pasted the code from the folder, making the process much smoother. In my US population time map, I found two interesting presumed glitches of note: in one decade of the population playback, 1910-1920 showed zero data points. Additionally, I could not get the legend to show up on the page in any way, even after directly searching the command. Otherwise, this chapter also went fairly smoothly.

Potential Applications

A few potential applications for the data in this chapter are compiling crime records in a given area in an easy-to-read way, especially with the inclusion of multiple charts. Dashboards also can give live data about an area, such as outages (which I have personally seen applied when in a Spectrum outage) or in an natural disaster with avoiding certain areas. Another application is seeing the population maps of certain endagered species in the context of time, such as watching the range of Florida panthers change or watching the species’ gradual range migration due to climate change.

Chapter 3

Overall, while not a very difficult chapter to complete, Chapter 3 contained a few instructional inaccuracies which made it difficult to complete. The Experience Builder was both informational and interesting, and I was very intrigued while messing around with different inputs for the 2D to 3D map companion. Especially analyzing natural disasters near or in Ohio, or separating out earthquakes by magnitude or the date they occurred. What I had the most difficulty with was the vague or inaccurate and outdated descriptions for certain locations within the software. For example, it took me quite a while to locate and update the trigger and action data sections. They are in very different places than described in the textbook. Additionally, I had an odd glitch where the Dynamic Content function only worked if I did not set the text box size to the one as directed by the textbook. It did end up working, but my text boxes ended up a little out of frame.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 introduced many new concepts to me, and was completely foreign to me even with my experience in GEOG 291. All of the apps functioned slightly different than listed, and did not run very well. If this exact textbook is taught in the future, maybe reducing the amount of these apps used per chapter would be helpful? I found the process quite frustrating to manage myself, and often had to consult outside sources to fix glitches with the app or the data itself. One such example was the fact no matter what I tried in the editor, I could not get my data for Line Incidents to work in either app. The apps also frequently crashed for me, and overall it was an unpleasant experience to deal with. The most helpful and straightforward app was Quick Capture, which actually worked quite well!

Potential Applications:

Experience Builder may allow those who are considering moving to states with higher rates of natural disasters to both analyze, consider their moving location, and prepare for future disasters. Additionally, Experience Builder makes it easy to compare to maps side-by-side and in the exact same location at the same time, making a side-by-side analysis of climate maps or other environmental changes due to climate change easier to monitor. Quick Capture would be a particularly helpful app for field work, especially with defined categories for each button (for example, a specific salamander species could be captured and added to a data set with just the press of a button, unlike software like iNaturalist which requires users to input necessary data).

Chapter One

I found Chapter One fairly easy to complete with prerequisite knowledge from GIS291. Additionally, have had taken the introduction course, I was familiar with basic operations such as basemaps and operational layers, and the levels of sharing for ArcGIS Online projects. I found the most difficult part to be learning how to edit and manage fields in the online version of ArcGIS, as it is formatted quite differently from the desktop version. Additionally, some of the formatting for the ArcGIS Online program seems to either differ by computer or has been updated since the textbook was written. Some of the screenshots looked very different to what I had, but everything functioned correctly, and I was able to complete the assignment with no substitutions or internet searches for clarification.

Chapter Two

Chapter 2’s tutorial took longer for me to complete, and was generally more challenging, but did introduce some very helpful concepts for learning GIS Online. Namely, the coding section of the pop-ups was fairly difficult to complete and was entirely new to me. It reminded me of some of the Python expressions assigned to complete in GEOG291, but was now entirely unfamiliar to me. Additionally, similarly to Chapter One, there were some sections of the textbook which had outdated or vague information, but luckily, it was fairly simple to complete. The story was tedious to complete, but incredibly important for refreshing my knowledge on Story Maps in GIS and how to accurately create them, especially in an easy-to-process format.

Applications

Some of the applications for my data that I have considered was mainly understanding median income in major US cities. Comparing population growth to median income could also help those considering moving out-of-state analyze the potential for competition in their job field, or to compare their current nearby city to the income level and population growth of a nearby city. An application for the first chapter’s data could be creating brief tour guides or highlights of an area, aimed at highlighting landmarks to tourists.

I have finished all assignments for this week! 

Hello! My name is Robin, and I’m a sophomore majoring in environmental science and minoring in zoology! I’m from Westerville, Ohio (only 30 minutes from Delaware, I’m local! Feel free to ask me about what’s fun to do around in the Columbus area!) and have always been incredibly passionate about conservation and preservation of the beautiful nature and delicate ecosystems we have here in Ohio 🙂

I have taken GEOG 291, and have overviewed and updated my profile, along with overviewed the website and its functions.

In the ESRI online resources,  I learned about the different uses of ArcGIS Online, especially in certain applications I did not consider. Specifically, I did not consider the use of ArcGIS Online for field research, since most portable devices are unable to run or store all of the needed data for ArcGISPro. Additionally, sharing data from ArcGISPro is fairly difficult if another researcher does not have a Pro license, and ArcGIS Online could be used to share that data.

The course was fairly easy and faster to complete than expected. Having previous knowledge from GEOG 291 already made me familiar with some of the functions and terminology, so I found this course quite helpful in fully understanding ArcGIS Online.

 

I am someone who loves going herping (or trying, given the fact central Ohio can be lacking in herpetological biodiversity), so I was able to find an ArcOnline map dedicated to finding popular herping hotspots! This map filters for distance from starting location, and type of reptile or amphibian you are looking for (crocodilians, etc.) it is very fun to use!

Source: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=28b37c8772254de18d168d46fd367535

Additionally, my TPG project I did for ENVS110 was based on lead contamination and hereptology, so I started looking into maps focusing on sources of lead polution in the United States. This map was made specifically for the general public to access and see the data on the amount of lead in their drinking water, and was able to learn the drinking water in my hometown had around 1-50,000 ppb of lead in the drinking water. It was a very fascinating map to explore and look into.

Source: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/9e0800c2fcaf40da82a36864f0155743