Before I started off with the term project, I explored the catalogue of previous term projects done by former students and saw that a disproportionately large amount of them were done on Vancouver and the nearby surroundings of British Columbia. While this makes perfect sense in the context of where we are and the institution we attend, along with the lab exercises of not just this course, but also 270, 370 and 373, I wanted to break out of the comfort zone and take on a project on a different area of the world, preferably one where i have not been to. The wildfire situation in California made for a perfect opportunity for me to take on a new challenge. The details of the project can be found with the following link below;

https://blogs.ubc.ca/patmgeob479termproject/

I was involved in 370’s final project with Louisa, Frances and Phantira. We used WIX in that project to make the project website. Somehow or another, I decided to take on a new challenge this year and do a project myself, just to see how far I can take the applicable lecture concepts from the course and apply them. I was very happy with my 370 teammates, but also wanted to see what it feels like to be fully accountable to my own work. Although I have done a lot of research for this project, I used a mix of skills learned from 270, 370, 373 and this course in the project. My regret is the lack of success for OLS and GWR models for state-wide geoprocessing, as that would have been two key areas I can use to demonstrate my understanding for 479 course concepts. Nevertheless I highly enjoyed the assignment and satisfied with the conclusions that I was able to draw from studying California’s wildfire patterns and the experience has high relevance for me in understanding the phenomenon as well as my ability to do these projects in the future.