Geography 107

Introduction to Human Geography - Lab Mapping Local Favorites / Mapping Yourself

Introduction to Community Mapping and Geocoding - Geography 107

Maps are an important communication and analysis tool. In this lab you are going to create a point map from address data. This sort of mapping is important in a host of sub disciplines within geography. It is especially important among business and economic geographers who use address maps to help them do business. It has a host of medical and health geography applications as well.

In this assignment you will be introduced to two mapping applications and a two spreadsheet applications.

You will also contribute the collaborative construction of map of favorite places (and the world) to consider.

Before you start:

Do not begin this assignment the night before it is due.
You may want to do this exercises on campus if you do not have a fast internet connection at home.
Please stop by my office if you need help with this assignment.
You may want to print out the instructions and work from the hard copy. This may save you some effort (but not ink)
You may want to print or screen capture the results page out (once you’ve clicked submit at the end of this exercise) as proof that you completed the exercise.
Remember to press TAB (or use your mouse) to move your cursor between response (answer) boxes.
DO remember to put your name in the appropriate response box below.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Below are the learning outcomes for this assignment.

Students will correctly identify or define several vocabulary terms associated with the topic.
Students will identify some of the known uses of geospatial technologies.
Students will use an online mapping software to construct a map and convert address data to coordinate data.
Students will contribute data via spreadsheet to a 'cloud computing' application, to create a wiki-style map with fellow students.

Part 1: Background.

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

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.

Many health and medical professionals also need to know how to collect, manage, display and analyze spatial data.

To provide you with some additional background, please watch a video embedded in this webpage (opens new window) from Penn State Geospatial Revolution Project, then answer the following questions.

Question 1: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, which of the following industries is poised to see the 3rd most growth over the next decade?

Answer 1

Question 2: In the segment of the video regarding the mapping of wildfire risk, the woman guest (Kass Green) suggests which of the following layers could be added together to make a map of wildfire risks in California.

Answer 2

Continuing from the video :

Question 3: What politician's election campaign did the video identify as "taking to a new level" their mapping of voters and trends.

Answer 3:

Question 4: 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 ____________________."

Answer 4:

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 places.

The first part of this assignment is to submit your home address (or an address that is very close to your home address).

We will use this data to make a wiki-style map of all the students in this class, so that we may best arrange you into spatially compact working groups, based on your address.

Step 1 . Open the 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 make 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.
We'll be using the SINGLE address lookup function for this assignment. We'll map multiple addresses in a later assignment.

Step 2. Once you're in batchgeocode.com, enter your address (or a nearby one) into the window and click on the "Map it!" button.

A map of your address will be made for you in .KML format.

Step 3. Make a note of the latitude and longitude coordinates.

Question 3: What is the file format used by Google Earth and Google Maps to make maps? (It's mentioned above)

Answer 5:

Question 6: Fill in the blank. What is the name of the process whereby you use software to convert address data into latitude and longitude coordinates?

Answer 6:

Question 7: Which of the following latitude and longitude coordinates are probably in Los Angeles County?

Answer 7:

That was the last question, so you have completed the question and answer portion of the assignment.

You have two tasks remaining. DO BOTH!

You need to fill in your name and submit your answers for this part of the assignment (see below).
You need to open the webpage containing the webform that will allow you to submit your information to the group map.

Step 7. Click on the link below to open a webpage which allows you to enter your data into a spreadsheet that will place your locations and your comments on a Google Map along with the others students....then...navigate back to this page to click the submit button below.

Step 7 Link: A Webpage that will allow you to enter your data to be mapped.

Step 8. Fill in the information below and click submit. Don't forget to finish your work in Step 7 above.

Your Name:

Your class:

Your instructor (pick one from the drop down list).