• An introduction to your project and a statement of the problem you are investigating
• A review of the literature highlighting any strengths and/or weaknesses of existing work on your topic and relating the literature to your particular question
• A description of the data you will use.  Please,  no laundry lists of data.  Only explain the files that you will use to answer your question, where the files came from, any modifications to the data, and how the data relates to your question.  No need to tell me about the base map or other background GIS data.
• A review of the methods you’ll use to complete your project.  This should be as detailed as possible, name specific procedures, tools, etc.

The extended project proposal is almost a first draft of your project – the primary difference between the extended proposal and the final project is that the proposal provides  a work plan for your analysis and final project includes your completed analysis and an interpretation of the results.

Submitting the proposal is not mandatory.  You may choose not to submit a detailed proposal and there will be no penalty.  The proposal provides an opportunity to get detailed feedback on your project before you finish your GIS-based analysis.  I will be out of town the week before the final project is due.  If you do not submit a proposal I will not be able to provide feedback on your project before the deadline.

Data: Exercise on Scale, Exercise on the MAUP

Lecture: Lecture notes are available to download here (powerpoint, flash).

Reading:

1. Price, M. Chapter 6 is recommended (not required) reading.  The chapter covers spatial joins, a topic that we review in class.

Assignment:

• List of data sources and data gaps for your final project.  This list should be annotated and have the following structure:
  • The first few sentences should be a brief review of your project.
  • The next few sentences should provide an overview of the data you have and are missing.
  • A list of the data you have.  Each list entry should provide the title and source of the data set, if its something you created that is fine, no need to make up a title.  If you have identified a data source but to not yet have it please include it in the list.  I may be able to help you get it…
  • If you feel like there are holes, parts of your project for which you cannot identify a specific data source please note these.  Be as specific as a possible, “I would like data to measure the acidification of lakes in the Adirondacks but…”

Please note:  Your grade on this assignment counts toward your overall final project grade.

An alternative type of project involves working with a community based organization.  This semester two local-not-for profits have identified specific projects for students with GIS skills.

1. The Rhode Island Family Life Center supports ex-criminal offenders and their families and is looking for several students to explore the geographic correlates of incarceration and criminal recidivism (more detail provided in class).
2. The Providence Plan, a local not-for-profit has developed an innovative application for the tracking of foreclosures.  This data set is under construction and the providence plan would like a student to critically engage with the construction and analysis of this dataset in an effort to understand how national foreclosure problem is manifest locally in RI.

The goal of your final project is to use the tools of cartography and spatial analysis to gain insight into a problem and/or policy.  The project should be MORE THAN A SERIES OF MAPS. I want you to learn something from the maps and/or analysis in your project – something that you would not have learned if you had not explored the data spatially.  You have a good idea if its difficult to describe your project without using spatial keywords like where, accessibility, environment, neighborhood, cluster, diffusion, etc.

The maps you make and/or spatial analyses you conduct should inform your understanding of the problem under investigation; a successful project will teach you something about your problem that you might not have otherwise known.

Project Timeline:

Meet with Seth to discuss your idea(s):  Week of 10/13-10/20
Project proposal due: 10/20/09
List of data sources and gaps due: 10/27/09
Literature review due: 11/10/09
Maps and description of data due:11/10/09
Extended 1500 word proposal due: 11/17/09
Final Project Due: 12/8/09

Using the data provided on this page make a map that shows the percent of children under 5 living in poverty in Rhode Island at the census tract level.   The map should emphasize those places that have high childhood poverty rates.

• You should include a basemap the shows the surrounding states and their coastlines.
• You choose the symbology and decide the best way to present the data.
• The reader should be able to tell which towns contained highest poverty rates.
• You may use auxiliary tables, charts, or text if you think they will help you case.
• The title of the map is “Childhood Poverty in Rhode Island”
• The map should be designed to be printed on an 11×17 piece of paper.

The data archive includes an excel file called “dt_dec_2000_sf3_u_data1.xls” (I kept the title provided by the Census Bureau Website).  The Excel file includes a column POV_U5 that tells you the number of children under 5 in each tract that meets the census bureaus definition of poverty (see table on page 5 of the report).   Each child under 5 is classified as either in poverty or not in poverty.  The column NO_POV_U5 includes the number of children under 5 who do not meet the definition of poverty.

Your first task is to add a column to the excel table that contains the percent of all children under 5 that are in poverty in each census tract.  You have all the data necessary to do this, calculate this new column using a an excel formula.

I gathered the shapefiles for this exercise from the internet.  I have not modified the files, they may be missing projection information and/or metadata.  You will have to figure out how to get the data align properly.

This is a team exercise, groups will be assigned in class.  You must submit a PDF file, the procedure is similar to creating a jpeg file (just choose pdf instead of jpeg).

DOWNLOAD DATA HERE

VISUAL NOTES & HINTS

Seth’s Answer

Please check out the View in PicLens feature.  It puts the maps on a virtual wall (and is kinda-cool).

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

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Lecture: Learning by Looking: A Cartographic Laundry List.

Reading (due 10/13):

• Mastering ArcGIS Chapter 4 (pages 153-177)

Assignment (due 10/13):

1. Complete questions 1-7 on page 177.

Lecture: Download slides here

Lecture: Projections and Coordinate Systems

Reading:

• Mastering ArcGIS Chapter 2 pages 63-75.

Assignment:

1. Complete the Chapter 2 Teaching Tutorial (pages 77-94)
2. Complete questions 1-10 on pages 93-94.
3. Your answers to questions 2 and 4-10 should be jpeg files.
   • Follow these instructions to create jpeg files from an ArcMap data frame.
   • E-mail me these files by Monday at 5pm.
4. Submit process diagrams for all questions (you do not have to submit the answers for Q.1 and Q.3 but you do have to submit process diagrams for those questions.

I know this is a lot of work.  This is the biggest homework assignment of the semester.  We’ll review the answers and critique each others work in class on October 6th.

Lecture: You can view the slides from the lecture below, download the powerpoint slides, or  download a flash version you can view in your browser.

Lecture: The structure of Spatial and non-spatial data.

Reading:

• Mastering ArcGIS Chapter 1 pages 17-24 (stop at the About ArcGIS section) and pages 27-32

Assignment:

1. Review pages 35-50 of Mastering ArcGIS.
2. Complete questions 1-9 on page 51.
3. Submit answers and process sketches

Data: Brown Registrar Database (it’s a pretend version, not the real thing)

Lecture: You can view the slides from the lecture below or download the powerpoint slides or a download a flash version you can view in your browser.