Land Management 201: Geographic Information Systems

Course Schedule: CCAC Spring 2017

Please note that the teacher reserves the right to edit this schedule on an as-needed basis to be responsive to student needs. An email annoucement will be made to communicate essential change information. Please check your ccac.edu email regularly.


Class Week/Date

Lesson or Topic

Pre-Work

In-Class Activities

Post-Work (“Homework”)

TUE 31 JAN

INTRODUCTION TO MAPPING

* Introduction to mapping fundamentals: latitude and longitude, projections, scales, coordinate systems

* Course overview and discussion

* Basics of ArcMap: navigating, selecting, attribute tables, labeling

* Fire up Carto for online mapping

None

* Projecting a 3-d surface onto a 2-d surface using a projection systems

* Example of map projection comparisons

* Extracting geospatial data from the Western PA Regional Data Center and mapping in Carto

* Fire up ESRI’s ArcMap and get a map working

* Purchase course text and install ArcMap on your personal computer

DUE TUE 7 FEB 2016 @ 5:45 pm - Send an email to Eric with the status of your install. If you have it fired up and working, send a screen shot of installed ESRI software (with programming running) in your email.

* Read ESRI’s description of map projections

TUE 7 FEB

MAP SYMBOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION

* Map structure basics: geodatabases

* Symbolizing data: points, lines, and polygons using qualitative and quantitative data

* Approaches to symbology and class sizes

* Layer groups and layer packages

Study ESRI’s documentation on Symbols and Styles (click around in ArcMap as you’d like—the more “doing” the better)

CLASS SESSION GUIDE

* Discussion of goals of solid map symbology.

* A look at Edward Tufte’s principles of clean map design

*Kurland and Gorr chapter two tutorials.

* Mini-project on communicating data

* Practice Set 1: Kurland and Gorr Assignment 2-1, 2-2, OR 2-3 – DUE Monday 13 FEB @ 2:00 pm

TUE 14 FEB

LAYOUTS AND WEB MAP OUTPUTS

* Creating layouts from map frames

* Adding supporting content to layouts

* Considering audience in layouts

* Publishing and symbolizing maps on ArcGIS Online

* Sign up for an ESRI online account . This is important to do before class as there can be issues that take time to resolve.

*Study ESRI’s documentation on Page Layouts and SKIM the section on printing (may come in handy at work).

14 FEB Class Session Guide

* Convert some of our favorite maps from the past two weeks into layouts and discuss sevearal designs of the same layout

* Zip and publish our shape files on ESRI online and on Carto to compare services

* Practice Set 2: Kurland and Gorr Assignment (3-1 OR 3-2) AND 3-4: – DUE Monday 20 FEB @ 2:00 pm

TUE 21 FEB

GEOSPATIAL DATA PROCESSING

* Interacting with, creating, and editng geodatabases

* Joining data tables

* Downloading US Census data and visualizing

* Working with American Community Survey data and margin of error considerations

*Study the ESRI documentation in “An Overview of the geodatabase” . This is a fundamental skill

CLASS SESSION GUIDE

* Group tutorial on creating and working with File Geodatabases

* Group exploration of census data visualizations

* Gathering censud data and visualizing it

No assigned work: Please get caught up on assignments 1 and 2. Instructions for submitting are forthcoming. For now, please save the map files and geodatabases in a safe plcae :)

TUE 28 FEB

Census data contintued

* Finish up HW assignments 1 and 2

Class session guide

* Exploring census data visualizations

* Designing semester proejct inquiry areas

* Practice acquiring census data

Complete in-class exercise 3 which is to gather and visualize a table or two of census data concerning your project area. Prepare to show the class your progress next week.

TUE 7 MAR

CENSUS DATA AND GEOPROCESSING

* Essential manipulation tools: clipping, dissolving, merging, intersecting, unions

Study ESRI’s documentation on geoprocessing: “Introduction” and subsections as well as skim the documentation on the extract toolset and the overlay toolset

7 March Class Session Guide

* Practice the US Census TIGER and ACS process using project relevant data

* practice using the tools to accomplish simple manipulations of data on existing maps

Explore possible primary data sets to support your project explorations.

TUE 14 MAR

Geoprocessing, finally!

No pre-reading

14 MAR CLASS SESSION GUIDE

  1. Merge
  2. Union
  3. Intersect
  4. Dissolve
  5. Update
  6. Buffer analysis and Selection

Please apply 3-4 of our geoprocessing tools to your Project data and bring your organized file geodatabase and map document with processed data to class to share with everybody!

TUE 21 MAR

ARC MAP ONLINE

* Practice analysis tools

* Upload to ESRI Online and Share

NONE

CLASS SESSION GUIDE

* Practice Set 6: Continute work on your project by adding layers to an online map and securing external datasets

TUE 28 MAR

NETWORK ANALYSIS AND ROUTING

* Network solution algorithms

* Creating network datasets

* Using network analyzer to solve various network problems

MODEL BUILDING WITH MODEL BUILDER

* Automating and chaining together ArcPro tools into your custom tools

* Creating a model to solve a problem that involves repetitive steps

Review the overview of the network analyst extension

* Wrestle with some routing problems by hand

* Implement a traveling salesperson solution by hand

* Rig up a network dataset

* Run network analyst with simple case

* Add constraints to model

* Work on a model with model builder if possible.

* Practice Set 7: Kurland and Gorr Assignment (12-1, 12-2, OR 12-3)– DUE Monday 3 APR @ 2:00 pm

* Checkpoint 2 preparation document – optional

TUE 4 APR

CHECKPOINT 2

* Flex time for first 1.5 hours based on progress over the previous four weeks.

* Students practice four weeks of learning with checkpoint task 2 & presentation of thir results

* Complete checkpoint 2 preparation document

* Class time opens with flexible instructional time based on student needs from the previous 4 weeks

* Last 2 hours of class: checkpoint project requiring all accumulated skills to this point

* Draft of final project proposal DUE Tue 18 APR @ 5:45 pm

TUE 11 APR

SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS

     

TUE 18 APR

RASTER ANALYSIS, LABELING, and PROJECT TIME

Make solid, documentable progress on your final project

CLASS SESSION GUIDE

* Raster introduction

* Labeling revisited

* Project Work time

Due 25 APR @ 5:45 pm Make solid progress on project. Prepare update for class next week

TUE 25 APR

Making Story Maps & Join Review

Make solid, documentable progress on your final project

1) Project Updates and sharing

2) Story Map Example - Eric's Final Project

3) Building a story map with ArcGIS online

4) Practice tabular and spatial joins with this database. Note: you must uncompress this file geodatabase and then you can access the files from within ArcMap

Due 2 MAY @ 5:45 pm : Make solid progress on project. Prepare update for class next week

TUE 2 MAY

FINAL PROJECTS LAB TIME

Make solid, documentable progress on your final project

GIS Break Exercise Instructions

Student-driven, teacher-supported work time on final project

Final Project Requirements (PDF)

Due 9 MAY @ 5:45 pm : Final project uploaded to assigned location by start of class

TUE 9 MAY

FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATION

* Final checkpont preparation guide

* Wrap up final project

* Students are provided 1.5 hours to complete the final checkpoint

* Students share the results of their final project with the class

NONE—Course finished!