Geography 107

Step 1. Read the background paragraph below, watch an associated video clip and answer the questions associated with the passages.

Geospatial technologies, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are becoming increasingly commonplace technological tools of the new century. It is imperitive that college educated persons learn some of the basic functions of GIS and GPS, especially if they have taken a geography course. These are the tools of the 21st century geographer and like the paper roadmap, everyone should know a little about how to make these technologies work for them. You should also know that the U.S. Department of Labor has identified geospatial industries as one of the top three growth fields for the next decade (only behind biotechnology and nanotechnology). This means that skill in this area should help you get a job after you graduate.

To provide you with some additional background, please watch this video from Penn State Geospatial Revolution Project, then answer the following questions.

Question 1: In the segment of the video regarding the mapping of wildfire risk, the woman guest (Kass Green) suggest which of the following layers could be added together to make a map of wildfire risks in California.

A	Fire station locations, ethnicity and population density
B	Slope (terrain), roadways and vegetation (fuel)
C	Known arsonists, fire stations and wildfire history.
D	All of these should be put together.

Continuing from the video :

Question 2: What political campaign did the video identify as "taking to a new level" their mapping of voters and trends.

Question 3: Complete the following sentence using a term or phrase from the drop down menu below:

According to a speaker in the video, "Geospatial intelligence has become, really, the foundation for just about anything that happens in the ____________________."

 

-Select- law enforcement world environment community military business world None of these

Question 4: What country is referenced in the segment about the attacks on people in Darfur, monitored by satellites by Amnesty International?
(select from the drop down menu below).

-Select- Libya Sudan Iraq Iran Congo

Question 5: Geospatial technologies are at the basis of the third fastest growing employment sector. Which of the following is growing faster?
(select from the drop down menu below).

: -Select- Plastics Automobile Manufacturing Nanotechnology Tourism All of these

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Part 2: Converting Addresses into Latitude and Longitude Points

In this section of the lab, you will participate in a group effort along with your classmates to construct a map of your favorite places in Los Angeles.

Step 2: Your job is to think of five places you really like. They can be restaurants, parks, bowling alleys, coffee shops, etc. Any place that has an address is suitable, but make sure it's a public place, not some place like your grandma's house...or your boyfriend's parents house.

Use the phone book or Google Maps to find the addresses of the five locations you would like to share with others in the class.

Step 3: Once you have found your five location addresses, you need to build a tiny database of your favorite places. The best thing to do is to put them in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel. I've created an example for you below using just some of my favorite local restaurants, but you can put other sorts of places in your database.

Here's an exact copy of this small database in Microsoft Excel fomat (.xls) .

You should download it, open it in a spreadsheet program (like Microsoft Excel) erase my entries and put your own in instead. Directions are included in the file.

Step 4. Once you have your database ready in a spreadsheet, you must open an online mapping program called batchgeocode.com (click to open in a new window).

This is one of the most valuable little pieces of free software on the internet because it allows visitors to this site to get highly accurate point maps from an address database. This process is called geocoding (or sometimes address matching).

Batchgeocode.com is a very useful tool for marketing, economic, political and social geographers, as well people who just want to make some maps of their addresses.

Step 5. Once you're in batchgeocode.com, you can follow their pretty simple instructions for making a map, but I'll provide the steps here as well.

1. Skip Step one. The default setting is for tab-delimited (or comma delimited) data. Leave it there.
2. Click once in the Step 2 window in batchgeocode.com and press Ctrl+A to select all. Then press delete to empty the Step 2 window.
3. Open you spreadsheet program.
4. Copy the white and pink cells in your database (highlight it and press Ctrl+C)
5. Paste it (press Ctrl+V )into the Step 2 window in batchgeocode.com
6. Click on the "Validate Source" button. Make sure that the word "Address" appears in the little box to the right of the word address under Step #4. The same should appear for the word "City", "State" and "ZIP". Don't worry about the comments field.
• THESE FIELDS MUST MATCH. It's the only way the software can figure out what you are trying to match.
7. Once you've validated the fields click on the "Run Geocoder" button and the software will make a map of your addresses. Occasionally an address can't be found, but that's becoming rare.
   • Batchgeocode.com will interpret the address data for you, find it on a map and return to you, in a window under Step #6, your original database, but it will include latitude and longitude coordinates in two new colums: bg_lat and bg_long.
   • Note the instructions provided about the map you've made. You can embed it in your own website or save it as a .KML file, which you could send to your friends that have Google Earth.
8. Just above the map that you created is a window under the words "Step #6". You'll click in that box, press Ctrl+A to select all and then Ctrl+C to copy it back into your clipboard.
9. Paste the data back into your spreadsheet. The only thing that should be different is that the latitude and longitude columns should now have data.

Step 6. Open the Google Doc that I sent you earlier in the week.

Step 7: Paste that which you have copied out of the window in Step #6 in batchgeocode into the spaces to the right of YOUR name. You will have 5 rows of data assigned to you. The columns will match those that you will have copied out of batchgeocode.com

Question 6: What is the process called in which you use software to convert address data into latitude and longitude coordinates?

: -Select- Alaska Vermont California Oklahoma Utah

Question 7: Longitude coordinate of your fifth site?

Answer 15 and the

.

Are you ready to submit the assignment?

Your instructor -Select- Steve Graves (pick one from the drop down list).

Name:

code:

When you click the button below, you will be directed to a web page that shows your answers. The instructor will get a copy of this email as well, but you may want to keep a copy for your records. If you are curious about the correct answers, please bring your questions to class.