Lab 1: Review of ArcGIS Basics

Goal and Background

The purpose of this blog was to refresh students with using ArcGIS software, particularly with ArcCatalog and ArcMap.  Students were reminded of foundational file types such as points, lines, and polygons.  They were then reintroduced to utilizing ArcCatalog for previewing and organizing map layers. They also were asked to identify various features of a map document via the identify tool with objects such as streets.  Attribute tables were also observed to examine different layers.  Lastly, students were asked to make a couple of basic maps consisting of different variables in order to compare/contrast.  

Methods 

The first question of this lab required students to identify what the geographic coordinate system, projected coordinate system and projection of a shapefile provided in the given data.  This was simply done by pulling up layer properties and viewing the data source.  Another question asked students to identify associated attributes with a provided donut shop layer.  This was executed by right clicking the layer and opening the attribute table.  The next question asked to identify the street names of the "Major Highways" crossing the Redlands map.  Opening up the attribute table, the two major highway classes were State 30 and Orange St, as shown in figure 1.  

Figure 1 - Major Highway Class

Lastly, students were asked to create two maps with different variables of the city of Erie. The first variable chosen was population density.  The variable for the other map was median rent.  For population density, number of persons was the first variable and was normalized with square miles per tract in order to properly represent spatial patterns.  This wasn't necessary for median rent, as it was displayed as a single variable and already standardized.
  

Results
When comparing the two maps, it was surprising to see there was not a correlation between higher concentrations of people and higher median rent.  The original assumption was that city centres would be the highest for rent, but the maps for the most part proved opposite of that, as shown in figures 2 and 3 below. 

Figure 2: Population Density per sq mile

Figure 3: Median Rent (USD)

Sources
Dr. Caitlin Curtis, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dept of Geography and Anthropology