I’m Amy, a third year Geography student on exchange from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. I have an interest in many sub-disciplines of Geography, spanning through human, physical and environmental. I will be using this blog as a portfolio for my work in GEOG 270 – Geographical Information Science.
Being able to produce GIS maps is a skill which is highly valued in many sub-disciplines of Geography. Being able to edit, analyse and ensure accuracy of this data are all skills which are required to ensure a high quality map is produced. Throughout this blog, I will be producing GIS maps using ArcGIS mapping software and will be writing about how I created each map, what analytical features I used, how I chose my data and how I ensured accuracy of my data.
I have also posted accomplishment statements for each lab, where I list what skills I have learned and how this is applicable to different fields of research and work.
GEOB 270: A Review and Personal Statement
A key concept I learned in GEOB 270 was understanding how the classification method used when presenting data on a GIS map can greatly influence how the reader understand the information that is being shown to them, which obviously brings into question the ethics of data representation. The main highlight throughout this course was collating the skills I had learned throughout the labs, i.e. data gathering and GIS analysis, to put together an original research paper on the Peace River ALR. One thing that surprised me about this course was the vast number of analysis techniques that can be performed on data, and mastering how to perform these techniques is a skill that will help me as I move forward in my Geography career.