GIS Day 2016

It's GIS Day?!

We are always excited to share what our students are up to, so the Internship spotlight is always extra special. The fact that it coincides with GIS Day is just a BONUS! 

In a continuing effort to spotlight our Internship students, we have created a web app using ArcGIS Online that highlights each student's internship project and location of both past and present students.

This information has been pulled from a "Press Release" assignment that each student completed in Week 7 of the Internship course. We hope you enjoy! 

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship Student Spotlights

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructors: Amber Bloechle, GISP and Dr. Derek Morgan. Course Facilitator /Coach: Salina Randall

 

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

In a continued effort to spotlight our Internship students, here is a web application that highlights what each student has been doing in their internship and where their internship is located. The iframe below highlights just Spring 2016 students. However, we currently have 3 semesters total included on the "Internship Tour" and plan to continue updating it each year in efforts to create a wonderful resource for our current and prospective students. 

This information has been pulled from a "Press Release" assignment that each student completed in Week 7 of the Internship course. Feel free to share the entire tour with your friends!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship Student Spotlights

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructors: Amber Bloechle, GISP and Dr. Derek Morgan. Course Facilitator /Coach: Salina Randall

 

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

This semester we thought we would do something new. In an effort to spotlight our Internship students, we have created a web app that highlights what each student has been doing in their internship and where their internship is located. We intend to update this web app each year to create a wonderful resource for our current and prospective students.

This information has been pulled from a "Press Release" assignment that each student completed in Week 7 of the Internship course. We hope you enjoy!

GIS Online Spotlight - GIS Internship

This week we will focus on GIS Internship - GIS 4944, GIS5945, GIS6905 as a whole. 

Experiential learning is imperative to begin a career in GIS. Our internship program is designed to help students gain real-world work experience so they are marketable for full-time, post-certificate careers.The course itself has two major goals; 

1. to monitor the progress of students in their selected internships or projects and 
2. to prepare students for the GIS workforce through focused seminar topics.

We currently have a diverse group of 16 students enrolled in the 3 sections of GIS Internship/Directed Study this semester. The majority are in their last semester with the certificate. 

One of the assignments this week is for students to join a user group. User groups are organizations for GIS users to network with other GIS users, share GIS technology and to learn about new developments in the field. Belonging to a GIS user group can help you get involved and stay connected with the GIS industry.

One student that already caught my eye is Lindsay Golden who is now a member of the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) group. OFI is a nonprofit organization "dedicated to the conservation of wild orangutans and their rainforest habitat." The organization created a GIS program that is supported by ESRI and maps intact forests and prime orangutan habitats. This program has also been the impetus for land protection efforts like their online “Sponsor Acres” forest protection campaign.

GIS is such a broad industry and this just shows that the possibilities are endless with GIS!


We are excited to see what this semester has in store for our students and plan to highlight all the students at various times throughout the semester. 

Cheers!

Salina Randall

Student Spotlight - Introduction to GIS

GIS 4043/L Introduction to GIS
Amber Bloechle, Instructor

Congratulations to Kelly Broomfield for being selected as this week's student spotlight!  Check out Kelly's blog here - Kelly's Blog .  Kelly works at Hurlburt Field, Florida and serves with the United State Air Force.  He is a Geospatial Analyst who has a strong background in remote sensing.  By taking the GIS courses at UWF, Kelly hopes to increase his marketability and boost his geospatial skillset upon retirement from the service.  Welcome to the spotlight!  This was a doozy of a lab and you rocked it!!

Weeks 7 & 8 : Data Search Lab

The Data Search Lab brings all of the concepts that students have learned so far into one awesome project.  This lab can be quite stressful but in the end, students leave with a sense of pride that they have conquered the task of building a GIS project from scratch.  Here are the learning outcomes for the exercise.  


Learning Outcomes:

• Review and record metadata for data coming from multiple sources
• Select GIS data that meets the needs of a defined project (scale, attributes, geographic extent, time sensitive, software being used or required format)
• Download data from online sources
• Practice data management of GIS data coming from multiple sources
• Detect and correct data errors for use in a GIS
• Intelligently select a geographic projection to be used in a defined project
• Detect and correct geographic projection issues
• Reproject data from Albers to UTM 
• Utilize select by location and clip tools in ArcGIS to isolate a study area
• View selected records and create a new map layer from selected feature
• Create easy to interpret maps presenting multiple downloaded data layers using ArcGIS

Kelly did an amazing job of displaying and presenting the data for this project. I really like that he took the time to make all of his maps look like they came from the same project and help tell a story. 

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.

Jose Falconett (click to check out his program blog)

Jose is a currently enrolled in the graduate extended GIS certificate plan.  He is on track to wrap up all courses in the next few semesters.  Jose resides in Ocala, Florida, and has a very diverse background ranging from management in the health care industry to work with the Florida Forest Service.   We are very happy that Jose has chosen GIS Online @ UWF to further his education.  

Internship Background - Jose is currently working with the City of Ocala's Public Works Department.  Types of projects he is working on include, map creation for city stormwater, FEMA analysis, and AutoCad conversions.  It sounds like Jose is a busy intern!  Congratulations on your achievement and keep up the good work!

Looking for an intern or partnership with UWF and GIS Online, please contact Leah Lewis at lewis@uwf.edu to find out how our students can help you!  

GIS Internship - Let's get to work!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.

Steve Hafner (Student blog)

Steve is currently enrolled in GIS Internship and has completed many of the certificate courses.  He will wrap up the certificate in December of 2015.   Steve previously earned his undergraduate degree from UWF in Marine Biology.  In addition to mastering GIS, Steve works full time at the Elbow Room in Pensacola.  If you haven't been there - you are definitely missing out!

Internship Background - Steve is currently working with the Marine Resources Division of Escambia County under the leadership of Shelly Martin and Robert Turpin.  Steve will spend his time with a mixture of office mapping and in the field recording seagrass habitat data.  In the end, Steve will be working with the team to create a interactive habitat map.  GIS Online and UWF's Environmental Science Department have sent many interns to work with Escambia County.  It's a great place to work and we appreciate their commitment to our program.

Welcome to the spotlight Steve.  It's pretty cold here in Pensacola today - perhaps this will warm up your weekend!

Heart-shaped (cordiform) map projection by French cartographer Oronce Finé, found in Recens et integra orbis descriptio (Recent and complete description of the world), published in 1536.  Happy almost Valentine's Day!

Bonus Spotlight Friday - GIS Internship

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internship - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.

Rena Lautzenheiser (Student blog)

Rena is in her final semester of the certificate program.  She is very interested in the using GIS for real estate and utilities along with all of the online applications.  Rena also works as a Montesorri teacher in Pensacola.  When not behind the computer or in front of the classroom, Rena's life revolves around family and two rescues (a senior Catahoula/lab mix and a 10-month old Australian cattle dog/German Shepherd/Lab/pit/keeshond (All-American mutt) which I hope to train for therapy work).  Rena you are a shining example of our student body and we welcome you to the spotlight!  We hope it's warm, because it's cold outside!  PS.  GIS Online loves dogs too - we have a puppy working in the office today.

Internship Background - Rena is currently interning with the West Florida Regional Planning Council under the supervision of Jessica Paul, GISP.  Rena is working on a variety of projects from online map development, spatial database record maintenance, spatial analysis, and even the fun stuff like planning for GIS Day.

Looking for an intern or partnership with UWF and GIS Online, please contact Leah Lewis at lewis@uwf.edu to find out how our students can help you!  

Internship Student Spotlight!!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.

Erin Maguire (click to check out her program blog)

Erin is a graduate level student wrapping up her final semester GIS Certificate Program. Her background is very interesting and diverse, just like many of our students! She graduated in 2010 from Florida Gulf Coast University with a B.S. in Marine Science. Since then, she lived in Seattle and volunteered at Seattle aquarium, taught science for a year in Guyana, and has worked as an environmental educator for the park system. We are very happy that Erin chose GIS Online @ UWF to further her education.

Internship Background - Erin is currently interning with the Pinellas County Natural resource section. She will be measuring drainage ditches using GPS and using GIS. She is also very interested in GIS especially how it can help manage coastal resources. Congratulations Erin on being named Internship Spotlight of the week. Who's awesome? You are!!

Looking for an intern or partnership with UWF and GIS Online, please contact Leah Lewis at lewis@uwf.edu to find out how our students can help you!  

Internship Student Spotlight!!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Jelly Riedel 

About Jelly: Jelly is currently enrolled in our graduate level certificate program were she is pursuing her true interests in environmental science.  She recently left the Navy with almost a decade of service and holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics.  Her first step after wrapping up her service including following her passion and enrolling in the GIS program here at UWF.  From there, she plans to move on to a master's program in environmental studies.  Outside of school, Jelly is married, with a busy 2.5 year old.  She also has two pet parrots (one true parrot, the other is a cockatiel), who are very demanding creatures. Her spare time involves a lot of reading, hiking, and zumba/dance fitness.

Jelly is currently interning with national DEVELOP program with NASA at Langley Research Center in Virginia.  At NASA, Jelly is working on the Coastal Mid-Atlantic Water Resources Project.  What an amazing opportunity for you!  Way to go and welcome to the spotlight. Working with NASA has the Celsius thermometer off the chart.  Astronaut helmets off to you!

Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Warren Rich 

About Warren: Warren is currently an archaeologist at the University of Vermont conducting lab work and field survey. He became exposed to GIS through archaeology, and throughout this program he has realized the vast potential for its usage in many different fields. Warren has already used the skills learned here to assist colleagues in personal and professional research using GIS, often showing them new things and more efficient ways to complete tasks. Ultimately, he hopes to use GIS on a daily basis as a career, whether in archaeology or another field.

In his current role as an archaeologist, Warren spends most of his time participating in ongoing research pertaining to least cost path analysis in the prehistoric Eastern Woodlands, managing and updating state archaeological databases, digitizing and working with field data collected from archaeological excavations, and assisting in GIS related tasks in the office.

When asked if he would consider himself a raster or a vector, Warren said he would consider himself more of a raster, many different pixels (often times at very different resolutions) which can complement each other in order to create something meaningful.  Vectors are a little too one track for him.  Welcome to the spotlight, Warren!

Internship Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Scott Crosby

About Scott: Scott has been working for the Florida Forest Service (formerly the Florida Division of Forestry) for 23 years, the last 16 years of his career haa been spent as the manager of two state forests in Putnam County. He was promoted to a Forestry Supervisor about 6 years ago, and now Scott manages three state forests for a total of about 12,000 acres. He uses GIS extensively in his job, as one of the duties he has is to maintain the geodatabase of various features on all three forests. The geodatabase includes features such as roads, prescribed burning units, timber sale layers, firelines, and most anything else you could think of that's related to managing a state forest for multiple-use benefits. Scott really enjoy making maps, and everything about GIS. One of the other things he involved in is the wildfire side of forestry. Scott is the primary Situation Unit Leader on one of Florida's Interagency Incident Management Teams. Over the last several years, he has had the opportunity to go to North Carolina, Texas, and the Okefenokee NWR to see GIS in action in the realm of large wildfire management scenarios.

About a year ago, Scott started a forestry consulting business and using GIS was extremely helpful and a critical component of creating a forestry geodatabase for several landowners, and a subsequent forest management plan. The thing he likes most about GIS, and this program in particular, is that it has kept his mind challenged.

When asked if he considered himself a vector or a raster, Scott says that he thinks he is a little of each. He tends to get a little too detail oriented sometimes, and at other times he on the opposite end of the spectrum. Congratulations on making the spotlight, Scott!

Internship Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Brandon Griswold

About James: James has been in the GIS field for almost three years now. Recently, he made the move from the public sector to the private sector. Formerly, he was a GIS Specialist for Bernards Township in New Jersey. He spends most of his time maintaining existing shapefiles for the municipality, performing system administration of GeoClinet, capturing data points in the field, and training other staff in GIS related software and hardware. He recently left this position when a new opportunity came along, and now he words for a GIS software company that specializes in making municipal management software that integrates GIS data directly into it. When asked if he would describe himself as more of a raster or a vector, James said that it would vary by the day. Sometimes he can feel precise and totally accurate in his work, like a vector, and other days he isn't so precise, but accurate enough to make it look pretty, like a raster. Overall, he thinks he is more of a vector though. He feels knowing exactly where you stand on something is better than having a general idea.


Check back next week for a new student spotlight!

Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Grace Bergman

About Grace: Grace is from Washington State, and about as far away as you can get from UWF within the lower 48! That hasn't stopped her though, as when she completes her Internship, she will be completing the Certificate Program. She's been taking classes since 2012, taking time off in the middle to become a new mom. Grace got into GIS by joining an environmental consulting firm out of design school. That job led her to a daily question of "How can I solve this problem with GIS?" which motivated her to learn more about it.
Now, Grace is currently working as a GIS Coordinator for an Environmental Management company dealing with watersheds. Her main tasks there include data creation, maintenance, and documentation; creating spatial analysis and models; translating data outputs; and map productions. Additionally, she develops model/scrip tools, establishes and refines data and operation standards, trains staff, and networks.
When asked if she considered herself more of a raster of a vector, Grace says that "Raster is cool and complex, but I am definitely more of a vector, flexible and playful." Congratulations Grace, and welcome to the spotlight!

Check back next week for our second spotlight on a lucky student from Intro to GIS!

Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Robyn Frelich

About Robyn: Robyn is an Urban Planner/GIS Analyst from around Tampa, FL and has happily been dabbling in GIS for several years. She works with her husband to provide GIS support to her unit, and uses GIS primarily for her job in transportation planning, making maps, and analyzing social economic data for future planning needs. What Robyn likes the most about GIS is how diverse it is and how many industries use it. It seems like no matter how familiar you are using it, you still find new things all the time. When asked if she considered herself to be more of a vector or a raster, she would have to consider herself a raster. Rasters seems pretty simple but can actually be pretty complicated. Each little piece means something, and has a value. Welcome to the Spotlight Robyn!


Check back next week for a new student spotlight!

Internship Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Anthony Coughlin

About Anthony: Anthony is originally from New England and relocated to the Pensacola area about seven years ago. He loves GIS and has been working with it for over six years.  Anthony really enjoys working with computers and being outside. Because of that, GIS gives him the best of both worlds! When asked if he were to describe himself as a raster or a vector, he that that he feels as though he would be more of a vector guy. He enjoy collecting field data (point, line, polygon), manipulating and editing and ultimately applying that data to aerials and other maps. Anthony's internship is with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. There he splits his him between collecting field data for past and future projects, post processing and analysis f collected data, organizing the current GIS folder filing structure, and creating maps using collected and processed data. Congratulations on the Spotlight, Anthony!

Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Ritza Anitsakis 

About Ritza: Ritza (which rhymes with pizza) graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in Spatial Science in May 2011. She now works as a GIS Analyst for Surveying and Mapping, Inc. (SAM, Inc.) Ritza spends most of her time researching and interpreting source records and documents along with producing special graphic layouts that combine various data from sources to produce complex plots using GIS software. In addition to this, her works also requires her to plan and sequence processing steps for database creation, application, display, and document production along with preforming a variety of analytical studies related to the development and implementation of the GIS system. She finds GIS interesting because there is no limit in what it can be used for. She learns about new ways that GIS can be applied everyday and those discoveries keep the profession exciting! When asked if she would describe herself as a vector or a raster, Ritza says that she would say vector because she's a small yet intricate person and she tries to appear smooth no matter how big or small a situation she is in. Welcome to the spotlight, Ritza!

Tune in next week for a spotlight on a lucky Remote Sensing student!

GIS Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Jody Steffel

About Jody: Jody works for the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative. She work with the GIS needs of the cooperative and is taking the GIS Certification course of help fill in the blanks for those areas that she is unfamiliar with. She enjoys the challenge of finding ways to use GIS at work and to "think outside the box" to build projects that others in Agriculture have not done. Jody would consider myself a vector as she is coordinating and connecting points to keep things rolling in the Agricultural Department with working alongside with 13 men and 525 shareholders. As part of her job, Jody creates continuous surface maps from yeild data, soil test information and growing season precipitation using Geostatisitical Analyst for the shareholder database book. She also uses Landsat and Deimos imagery to estimate crop yield and utilizes Rapid Eye imagety for estimating final Tons/Acre during harvest. This is only a small bit of what Jody does, there is still so much more! Who would have thought beets would provide such a great use of GIS? Congratulations, Jody, for making the spotlight!

Just for fun, some facts about beets:

• Beets are a "good mood food". Beets contain betaine, a substance that relaxes the mind and is used in other forms to treat depression. It also contains trytophan which is also found in chocolate and contributes to a sense of well being.
• You can use beet juice to measure acidity. When added to an acidic solution it turns pink, but when it is added to an alkali it turns yellow.
• In 1975, during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, cosmonauts from the USSR’s Soyuz 19 welcomed the Apollo 18 astronauts by preparing a banquet of borscht (beet soup) in zero gravity.

GIS Internship Student Spotlight

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs. Leah Lewis, GISP

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following student was chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Dennis Davis

About Dennis: Do you know what time it is?  Internship Spotlight time - that's right!  This week Online GIS has chosen Dennis Davis.  Dennis is a student here at the University of West Florida and working towards a career in environmental law.  Dennis chose to learn more about GIS in his quest to be the best!

Dennis secured an internship at the West Florida Regional Planning Council under the direction of Mrs. Jessica Paul, GISP (an Online GIS alumni).  During his time at the WFRPC, Dennis will be working on 2010 Census growth maps, transportation project update maps, congestion management plans, GIS Day planning as well as some pretty detailed spatial analysis and database record maintenance.  It sounds like Dennis is going to be one busy guy this semester.

Welcome to the spotlight Dennis - we hope you enjoy your visit!

If you would like to learn more about the WFPRC, check out their website - http://www.wfrpc.org/.  Also, Online GIS would to congratulate Jessica for winning best story map award at the 2013 Southeast User Conference in Jacksonville.  Check out her work here - http://wfrpc.org/gis/CI_StoryMap/Index.html


Stay tuned! Next week the spotlight will fall on a student from Remote Sensing!

GIS Internships - Let's get to work!

GIS4944/5945, GIS Internship, Instructor, Mrs.Leah Lewis, GISP

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT AWARDS

The following students were chosen to highlight their current GIS internship experience.  

Jack Gibson 

About Jack: Congratulations are in order to Mr. Jack Gibson, our first internship spotlight.  Jack has secured an internship with Orange County Public works in sunny Orlando, Florida.  Jack is a graduate of the University of Central Florida.  During his internship, Jack will be working a variety of tasks.  These include creating python scripts to update stormwater models and also for tasks in the traffic division.
He will also be creating training tutorials and teaching at least one of the courses.  It sounds Jack is going to have a very busy semester! Congratulations on being the first Fall Spotlight.  Keep up the good work!

Jay Johnson 

About Jay: Our second internship spotlight is Jay Johnson.  In May 2006, Jay earned my AA from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College then moved to Liberty County, Georgia where his wife was serving in the Army. He spent the next year and a half as an Army husband before he started working for the Liberty County Board of Assessors as a Mapping/GIS Technician. Jay is responsible for creating, correcting and maintaining tax parcel data from real estate deeds and plats using a GIS. He also provides technical mapping assistance and support to department personnel. During the past 5 years, he has played a key role in developing Liberty County's public facing web application for tax parcel information. Currently, Jay is working on creating an address point feature class that can be linked directly to each residential and commercial improvement in the County's Computer Aided Mass Appraisal (CAMA) system. Upon completion of the GIS certificate program, Jay plans on submitting my application for GISP. The Online GIS team had the pleasure of meeting Jay at the ESRI's Southeast User's Conference in Jacksonville, FL.  Way to stay involved in the community and welcome to the club!


Stay tuned for next week's spotlight!!