Student Spotlight - 2/23-2/27/15

GIS 4043/L Introduction to GIS
Amber Bloechle, Instructor

Congratulations to Lindsay Golden for being selected as this week's student spotlight!  Check out Lindsay's blog here - Lindsay's GIS Journey .  Lindsay currently lives in Destin, Florida, and enjoys spending time outdoors, with wildlife and maps.  She holds a BS degree in biology and is looking to combine her degree and interests into a position in the professional world.  Lindsay you have come to the right place with GIS Online!  Welcome to this week's coveted spotlight.  The time spent here is dry and warm and cozy.  See all that sunshine in your photo?  Can you share with us here?  We are waterlogged and so cold this week.

Week 5 - Projections Part 1

This week's lesson provides introductory information about geodetic datums, ellipsoids, geoids, and common coordinate systems. The global (spherical) coordinate system, based on latitude and longitude, is presented along with several of the more important projected coordinate systems such as the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), Albers Equal-area, Lambert Conformal Conic, and State Plane Coordinate Systems. Tissot's indicatrix and its use for understanding the distortion associated with various map projections is also introduced. You should be able to use the information in this week's lecture to help select an appropriate map projection for a particular GIS project.

Why was Lindsay selected? 

Deidra and I always look forward to Lindsay's maps. She's done a great job consistently this semester. We are pleased to highlight her as a spotlight this week with her "Projections Part 1 Comparison Map"

We really like how she used primary colors to communicate counties and area measurements among the three different map projections. Additionally, the grey/white background contrast really makes the important info pop. The table makes that info easy to verify and smooth/curved data frames add a nice touch. She owned it... It's Golden!