Week 9

      The station fire in 2009 in Los Angeles occurred in the Angeles National Forest being one of the largest in Los Angeles' history. With the growing size of the city, there are more housing being built closer to the dense forestry of the National Forest, putting more people in a threatening range of high fire potential ("Los Angeles' Biggest Fire Ever"). As you can see in the map, the map is extremely close to the dense city putting many lives in danger, but the fire was contained to stay away from these heavily populated areas, burning over 140,000 acres ("Breaking California News").  

      As you can see, the fire grew increasingly closer to a high volume of schools in the city. With this close proximity, two school districts had to delay the beginning of their school year. The La Canada Unified School district including four schools, and the Glendale Unified School District including thirty one schools (La Canada Unified, Glendale Unified). The 2009 Station fires affects the schools in close proximity by causing them to shut down, which builds the budget on this already disastrous fire.

      Each day that a kid misses school, it cost the government money, so with the closing of two whole school districts is just another add on to the budget. Along with that, there is the repairing of any damage done to schools nearby, which from the map it shows that there are many in close proximity of the fire. Every day that a kid misses school it costs the school about twenty nine dollars a day per kid (Crowe). So with the average number of kids in primary, middle, and high schools in California being 2,442 per school, and there being thirty five schools being shut down, that is 85,470 kids on average that school was delayed for (Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools). So at twenty nine dollars per student, the station fire costed the schools about 2,478,630 dollars for every day that the students had to miss school. This is just a cost of an effect of the fire among the many other repairs that needed to be made such as roads, and infrastructure. 

AFP. "Los Angeles' biggest-ever fire ruled arson: officials." WAToday.com.au. 4 September 2009. Web. 9 December 2011.

"Breaking California News." California Fire News. 1 September 2009. Web. 9 December 2011.

Crowe, Kevin. "Chronically Absent Students Cost County Schools Millions." KPBS.org. 27 June 2011. Web. 9 December 2011.

"General Information." Glendale Unified School District. 2011. Web. 9 December 2011.

"Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools and Districts: Years 1999-200." National Center for Education Statistics. September 2001. Web. 9 December 2011.

"Welcome to LCUSD." La Canada Unified School District. Web. 9 December 2011.

       

      

            

Week 8

      My Census map series summarizes the ratio of each race selected, in each United States county. The races that are represented above are: Black, Asian, and Some other race.It shows where there is more of the selected race by the increasing darkness of color of each county. The population of that race in each county is compared to the total population of each county. For example, in the map showing the percentage of "Some Other Race Population", you can see that a large group of a different race lives in Southwestern states and counties. This could be caused by many things one of them being that it is adjacent to another country meaning that there is very much immigration to that area of the country.
      I surprisingly grew to really enjoy GIS, enough so that I am considering minoring in it. I am very shocked that I turned out liking it because my confusion at the beginning of the quarter really put GIS in a bad light for me. Now that I have gotten used to ArcGIS, its actually really cool to be able to figure things out and actually create maps. I definitely think that it had to do a lot with the tutorials that were done, because I would think I did not learn anything and then when I would go to create a map, I was shocked at how much I remembered. Definitely what turned GIS into a good experience for me was becoming familiar with the program. BUT I did have one downfall with my GIS experience and it was this particular lab. I had a series of bad happenings with this one. First, when I had returned to my work, which I had almost finished the tutorial, nothing was there meaning I had to restart the tutorial. After that, I realized I had calculated at one point wrong making me have to restart again. Then, once I believed I got the tutorial right, I became very confused with the next stages of the lab which led me to VERY much trial and error. Ultimately I ended up at a result, but not easily. Besides this one time, my GIS experience has been positive.

Week 7

 

These maps are depicting the area around Larch Mountain in Washington. As you can tell from the 3d model, Larch Mountain is the highest peak of its surrounding area, being surrounded by smaller moutains and a then a prominent valley. Larch Mountain serves as the highest peak in Clark County, Washington, with an elevation of 3,480 feet. 

      Extent information:

            Top: 46.9872222222

            Left: -121.919444444

            Right:-121.230555555

            Bottom: 46.4288888888

      Spatial Reference:

           Datum: D_North_American _1983

Week 6

Distance From Washington D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan:

Two Point Equidistant: 6,648.755 miles

Azimuthal Equidistant: 8,341.118 miles

Distance From Washington D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan:

Hotile: 7,923.891 miles

Stereographic: 9,776.980 miles

Distance From Washington D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan:

Bonne: 6,730.705 miles

Sinusoidal: 8,098.076

*Definitions taken from http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/mapping/a_projections.html      

      Map projections are very important because each one distorts a different part of the Earth. It is very necessary to have so many different types of projections because each one gives an accurate reading of a certain part of the Earth. For example, if someone needs an accurate reading of North America, then the projection that would most benefit them would probably distort another part of the world such as Antarctica. It is also very important to research which projection would be most beneficial if trying to find the distance or actual size of a certain area because it can be very easy to not realize where there is some distortion on the map.

      When looking at the distance from Washington D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan in all of the projections the distance is different even though it is the same measurement, which makes you wonder which one is accurate. The distance between these two cities on the mercator map, which is very commonly used, is 6,934.478 miles apart, and when compared to the projections displayed above, the closest distance to this one is the Bonne map projection with only about 200 mile difference between the two. By comparing these two projections it can give a more accurate distance between the two cities.

     There are many physical differences in every projection, and each one has a different part that is distorted, whether it be land, sea, or both. In the equidistant projections, the first obvious difference is the difference in the size of Antarctica; it is much larger in the first one compared to the second. Along with that is distortions in Australia and the way the continents are shaped. In the conformal projections, you can really see the distortion in both land and sea in the Hotile projection compared to the Stereographic projection. The whole map is a different shape. The most distortion in the Hotile projection is in the Northern Hemisphere, making North America HUGE, and making Europe and Asia tiny. Compared to the Hotile, the Stereographic projection looks pretty proportionate minus Australia, which has turned into the size of both Asia and Europe. In both of the Equal Area Projections, everything seems more proportional to each other. I think that the Bonne is a good projection, obviously distorting the ocean, but to me the Sinusoidal projection seems like it is the best representation of the whole Earth even though it changes the whole shape of the Earth.

      All of these maps have characteristics that would be beneficial in different scenarios. For example, if you are finding the size of Australia, you aren't going to use the stereographic projection but you might use the sinusoidal one instead. Each different projection provides something to specific needs, which makes projections very important because it makes information more accurate. Having more points of view of the Earth help to build a better overall picture of the Earth.

Week 4

      I would say my experience with ArcGIS was both good and bad. The biggest challenge I had was dealing with the changes of the updated ArcGIS we are using and the directions on the tutorial that were based on the older version of ArcGIS. I found the tutorial VERY easy to follow and understandable. I also found it really rewarding to be able to enter the information and see what I had just done on the map in front of me, especially when I would get on a roll and be able to just constantly follow the directions and keep creating maps. I also enjoyed getting to work with a program I had never worked with before. Overall I enjoyed using ArcGIS but I'm not sure if was only due to having step-by-step directions in front of me.
      The thing that I did not like about my ArcGIS experience the most was getting stuck on the translation of the directions when it was referring to the older version of the program. It was SO incredibly frustrating to not be able to find what the directions were referring to and be completely stuck, especially if there was not a TA available while I was working on it. It pretty much would put an entire halt on me working on my lab until I could get help. Also, although I really enjoyed it giving me complete directions, I was not exactly sure what I was doing to the map about half of the time. I just did what it told me to do but it would have been nice to understand what it was having me do a little bit more. Another problem I had, which may have been a personal one, was that every time I saved it, emailed it, then opened it up again in the lab it would never show up my previous work and I would have to repair my data. It was quite stressful for my work to not show up every time I opened the file.
      I do not think I know or understand the program enough to recognize what a real pitfall in the program would be. Once you actually learn to use it, I can imagine it is extremely helpful in creating a map of your own and the only downfall I could see it having is the limitations the program has on it, say if you would want to create something is does not recognize. As for potential, I think it has immense potential because it takes away the the pencil and paper of making a graph and brings such precision and organization to data. It makes it easy to edit data, if the information were to change instead of having to change it by hand on a graph on paper. I would say that any of the pitfalls it has will always be outnumbered by the amount of potential is has.
       I feel that it would take many hours playing around with ArcGIS to figure out how to really use the program on your own. I know if I were to try and make a map on the program I would not even know where to start. I probably would not have looked at half of the windows I opened. I am definitely excited though to become more familiar with the program because it really was rewarding and cool to see what I had just created.

Week 3

http://g.co/maps/n5b96

Neogeography has potential for a positive outcome when used for what it was intended. For every one to have an ability to share their travels, research, and opinions through making their own maps opens the door for much more variety on the internet. For example, instead of only having a cartographer portray a map on only selective information, you can see a map made by an artist of everywhere their art is displayed, or you can see a map of all the restaurants someone ate at while abroad. It gives an opportunity to display information in an understandable way to every interest. 

There are definitely pitfalls and consequences in neogeography. Not everyone is honest in the information they display when given the opportunity to share, like we see on sites such as Wikipedia. There is potential for neogeography to get out of hand from the misuse of the ability to share your personal information with the world, and the consequence of that is caused by our inability to filter out what is true and what is not.  There is also the consequence of the displaying of inaccurate data. Whether it be intentional or not, people will display their information as fact and then someone else will use that information for their own cause. By this happening it causes the continuous use of data that is not correct. The inaccuracy of data is something we have to watch out for when doing a simple Google search, with the continuation of neogeography, the web of lies will continue to grow.

Graph For week 2

The graph I posted on my original blog did not work.