GIS4043 Introduction to GIS Student Spotlight: Projections Part Il

GIS4043 Introduction to GIS, Instructor, Mrs. Amber Bloechle

Projections Part 2

This week we took a more detailed look at map projections In this lab everyone was assigned a county and we were required to download data from online sources, create 1 map and 1 screenshot. The deliverable map and screen shot needed to display a shapefile of STCM data, major roads, county boundaries, the quad index, and aerial imagery all in the same projection.

Student Learning Outcomes:

• Explore and download aerials, topographic quadrangles, shapefiles and tabular xy data from two different online data sources for Florida
• Identify .sid and .swd files
• Define a spatial reference for an unknown data set
• Reproject GIS data to a common coordinate system and projection
• Recall the difference between defining and projecting a file
• Convert coordinates to decimal degrees in Excel
• View map scale, cursor coordinates and bing aerial basemap as a reference to determine if the defined projection is correct
• Identify UTM and state plane zones for a specific area
• Decipher Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) code
• Create x,y data using Microsoft Excel and import to ArcGIS
• Identify workable Excel file formats for ArcGIS
• Locate important accuracy information regarding GIS/GPS data
• Determine if retaining the “seconds” measurement in a dataset is appropriate based on the accuracy of the data
• Relate coordinate values to the appropriate earth hemisphere and double check calculations make geographical sense
• Generate a map displaying aerials, topographic quads, shapefiles and tabular xy data

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen for their exceptional work on the Projections Part 2 assignment:

Michelle Cryder

About Michelle: Michelle hails from Aimes, Iowa where she lives with her husband and her cat. She has a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Meteorology from Iowa State University.
She is currently working with the Agricultural Research Service in the hydrologic department. She is hoping that this certificate program will give her the extra boost in the professional world.  A week in the spotlight is a great way to start!  Congratulations Michelle!

What we like: Michelle presented all of the required layers in a clear, easy to read map.In addition to her excellent symbol and color choices we like that she included all of the data layers in her legend. Great job!

"In Intro to GIS this week, I went through the second week of learning about projections. For this map, I downloaded aerials, vector files, and XY data. Using the projection of the aerials, I had to reproject the other data into the same projection. For the XY data, I used Excel to convert coordinates into decimal degrees via a formula. I then inserted the data and changed it into a .shp file. The following map shows the petroleum storage tank locations for two quadrants in Escambia County, FL. The second image is a screenshot of my layers, and what projection they are all in."