Integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into your Curriculum

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Integrating Geographic Information Systems
(GIS)into your Curriculum

• Teaching American History
• Meg Merrick Heather Kaplinger
• Year 2 GIS Inservices

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Today

• What is GIS?

• Methods of Inquiry Problem Solving Process

• Discuss Geographic Data

• Classifying Displaying Data

• Familiarization with RLIS Data

• Working with Arc View
• Create a Data Driven Map

• Work in Groups Present a Map

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What is Geographic Information Science?

• "An emerging field of knowledge that embraces
  the nature, representation, acquisition,
  analysis, discussion, and communication of
  geographic or geospatial data in a computational
  environment."
• -- UCGIS (University Consortium for Geographic
  Information Science)

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Geospatial Data

• Spatial (positional data) that has been
  georeferenced, or relates to a geographic
  coordinate system (such as latitude longitude)

How do we get this type of data ?
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Create the Digital Earth
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Global Positioning System (GPS)
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Examples of Geospatial Data

• Climatological
• Satellite imagery
• Aerial photos
• Public lands (surveying)

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Advantages of geospatial data

• Position is inherent
• we have the WHERE
• Can be used to address geographic problems

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Challenges of geospatial data

• Complex data sets
• Large data sets
• Usually requires computers

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Things To Think About When Approaching A
Geospatial Question

• Nature of the data used to used to understand the
  phenomena

• Information the data provides

• Method used to analyze data

• Method used to display the results

• What tools can be utilized

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Inquiry

• Traditional Approaches
• Problem Solving Process
• Geographic Data
• Classifications of data
• ArcView Legend Schemes
• Geographic Concepts

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Traditional Approaches

• Deductive

the deriving of a conclusion by reasoning

• Inductive

inference of a generalized conclusion from
particular instances
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Other Approaches

• Quantitative
• Measuring a phenomena mathematically
• Count, amount, or number
• Estimations
• Totals
• Measurable greater / less / equal
• Duration and intensity

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Other Approaches..

• Qualitative
• Describing a phenomena
• the nature of phenomena
• its characteristics
• its rank

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Problem Solving Process
1. Identify the problem
2. Collect data to solve the problem
3. Explore the data
4. Analyze the data
5. Evaluate the results
6. Present the results
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Geographic Data

• Discrete Continuous
• Raster Vector
• Point, Line, Area, Volume

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Discrete Data the actual location can be
specified
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Line
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Point
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Parcel (Polygon)
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Continuous Data phenomenon that can be
measured anywhere
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Soils Data
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Elevation Data
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Data Formats

• Raster
• Vector
• Tables

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Raster Data is stored in a grid file structure
associated with continuous data
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Vector Data is stored in discrete structures
Line
Point
Polygon
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Table Data

• Most common data format for data not collected
  geospatially such as census (demographic), gross
  domestic product (economic), voting (political),
  toxic chemical releases (environmental), etc
• the lists is endless on what data is collected
  on.

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Table Data a.k.a The SPREADSHEET
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Classification of Data

• Nominal
• Ordinal
• Interval
• Ratio

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Nominal The data is named
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Ordinal (lt , gt) The data has been ranked into
ordered categories, ranges, and relationships
(orders ranks)
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Interval (, -, average) The data has an equal
distance between categories. There are numeric
values with and arbitrary zero In other words
this measurement level is used to organize
features along a continuum
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Ratio (Multiply Divide) The data is set at an
interval with a true zero. In other words it is
this is a how you display a percentage such as
population density.
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ArcView Legend Schemes

• Single Symbol
• Graduated Color
• Unique Value
• Dot
• Chart

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Single Symbol
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Graduated Color
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Unique Value
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Dot
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Chart
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Geographic Concepts

• Most / Least
• Density
• Inside / Outside
• Whats Nearby
• Change

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Most / Least
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Density
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Inside / Outside
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Geographic Problem Solving

• Identify the problem is GEOGRAPHIC in nature

• Collect the GEOGRAPHIC data to solve the problem

• Explore the data using GEOGRAPHIC VISUALIZATION
  AND SPATIAL DATA EXPLORATION

• Analyze the data using SPATIAL ANALYSIS

• Present the results using CARTOGRAPHY

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• AS A GROUP
• List the properties that are common to the
  project
• List the properties that are different
• DISCUSS
• The geographic nature of the problem
• Data needed to answer what do you already have
  in terms of data sets that applies to your
  question?
• Analysis needed to answer the problem refer to
  geographic concepts
• Method for presenting the results