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Geography 150 : Home

World Regional Geography: Lab 3

Tropical foilage and rice field

Introduction to Community Mapping and Geocoding - Geography 150

Maps are an important communication and analysis tool. So far you have used choropleth maps to do analyses and communicate information. 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.

In the context of this course, perhaps similiar technology could be used to map the outbreak of disease in some remote location. All you would need is a satellite enabled cell phone, and form similiar to the one you'll use below.

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:

  1. Do not begin this assignment the night before it is due.
  2. You may want to do this exercises on campus if you do not have a fast internet connection at home.
  3. Please stop by my office if you need help with this assignment.
  4. You may want to print out the instructions and work from the hard copy. This may save you some effort (but not ink)
  5. 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.
  6. Remember to press TAB (or use your mouse) to move your cursor between response (answer) boxes.
  7. DO remember to put your name in the appropriate response box below.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Below are the learning outcomes for this assignment.

  1. Students will correctly identify or define several vocabulary terms associated with the topic.
  2. Students will identify some of the known uses of geospatial technologies.
  3. Students will use an online mapping software to construct a map and convert address data to coordinate data.
  4. 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 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 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?

Question 2: 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.

Continuing from the video :

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

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 ____________________."

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 or girlfriend's 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.

Once you have found your five location addresses, you will 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.

Step 3: Open your spreadsheet program (like Excel) . You have two options at this point.

  1. You may try to copy and paste the table below directly into your spreadsheet...this may work with some browsers (Firefox) but not others.
  2. Open the this link which should prompt you to download an Excel file, which you can then open in your spreadsheet.
Address Table
Place Name Address City State ZIP Comments Latitude Longitude
Pho 999 Restaurant 7255 Reseda Blvd Reseda CA 91335 I love this place and so do my kids. We get the number 50 bowl every time. They appear to incorporate some other flavors into their dishes, making this place maybe a "California Fusion" restaurant as much as it is Vietnamese.    
King's Burger 9345 Reseda Blvd Northridge CA 91324 I go here for lunch often. They've got a ton of stuff on the menu, including (from experts) very good sushi. I like the blackjack burger best.    
Jerry's Pizzeria 22035 Sherman Way Canoga Park CA 91303 This is a bit of a dive, but locals have been going here since the 1950s. Good pizza, pretty greasy but my kids are welcome and they're pretty laid back here, serving beer and showing ball games.    
Pita Pocket 9127 Reseda Blvd Northridge CA 91324 I really like the Schwarma Laffa here. It's like a Middle Eastern burrito. Good crowds at lunchtime and very friendly, family owned atmosphere. Lots of good sides too, like babaganoush.    
Brent's Deli 19565 Parthenia Northridge CA 91324 Killer New York Style Deli. Come hungry to this place because they'll serve you more than you'd ever guess. I like the Rueben sandwich most.    

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 a spreadsheet open that looks like the table above, erase MY (Dr. Graves') entries and replace them with your own favorite places. Put the street address, city, state and ZIP code in the appropriate cells. Keep your places local, please. Then write a short blurb about this place.

Step 5. 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 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.

Step 6. 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, and may have a new column header (depending on how you pasted).
  10. You may need to erase a row of data if you find that you a second row of data headers across the top of your spreadsheet.

Step 6. Save your spreadsheet file and answer the questions below.

Question 5: What is the file format used by Google Earth and Google Maps to make maps? (It's mentioned above and in Batchgeocode.com)

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?

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

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

You have two tasks remaining. DO BOTH!

  1. You need to fill in your name and submit your answers for this part of the assignment (see below).
  2. 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.

(pick one from the drop down list).

 

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