Module 9 Term Project and Digital Earth Project Management

9.1 Preliminaries

9.1.1 Readings

No readings this week.

9.1.2 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

  1. Plan a small project using geospatial data to solve a problem [e.g., buying a home in Waterloo Region] or highlight an environmental issue [e.g., sea-level rise in Fiji]
  2. Create a basic story map illustrating the geospatial dimensions of a problem or issue
  3. Understand some of the complexity involved in working with real-world Digital Earth tools
  4. Move forward on executing your plan for completing a term project

Activities for Module 9

  1. Final Exam will be held in Day 2 of Module 9
  2. No assignment this week
  3. No quiz this week

9.2 What is the Term Project?

To truly understand and gain an intuitive feel for the Digital Earth; how you can find and access geospatial data, how you can bring different datasets together in interesting ways, what types of questions lend themselves to a Digital Earth project - you have to really just do it. Throughout the course so far we have explored various online tools and case studies employing geospatial mapping and data to solve real-world problems. Now we turn to actually planning, conducting, and evaluating a project on our own.

9.2.1 The project

  1. Your first goal is to identify an environmental problem or issue that you are interested in or want to learn more about. You will have to do some independent research on this topic so you can design an appropriate project.

Examples of project ideas might include

  • Visualizaing COVID-19 emergence and spread
  • Rental housing in Waterloo Region: how accessible is rental accomodation to [students, people earning minimum wage, etc.]
  • Climate model scenarios: mapping precipitation extremes
  • Comparing crowdsourced and official datasets for your community
  • Global sea level change: hotspots of concern
  • examining the spatial risk of earthquakes in western North America

The project idea can be broad or simple. And it is a good idea to consult with the course instructor on your idea before moving forward.

  1. Next you need to do two things: identify how you want to explore this issue, and what data or resources area available.

To identify the how you can think about what you want to produce, this can be for example

  • a story map using ArcGIS Online or Google Earth
  • an infographic
  • critical analysis of an existing web map or data product
  • using GIS software to do an independent analysis

You will have to use your Google skills to find data and resources. It is a good idea to consult with the instructor as you start to come up with ideas of how you want to conduct your project.

9.3 Resources for Developing your Project Idea

9.3.1 Creating a Google Earth Story - 30 minute activity

A very clear overview of how to get started with a Google Earth story is available here.

9.3.2 Creating an ArcGIS Online Story Map - 30 minute activity

Here you will walk through a tutorial creating a story map in a platform called ArcGIS Online. An account will be made for you with your Laurier email address and sign-in details will be emailed to you.

9.3.3 Importing and Working with GIS Data in Google Earth - 30 minute activity

Learn how to work with external GIS data in Google Earth by following along with this tutorial.

9.4 Planning your term project

Each term projec will consist of:

  1. a visual component (story map, infographic, map, poster, etc.)
  2. a written component (10-12-page report on your project)

The written component should include the following sections

  1. introduction to the environmental issue or problem (this should make reference to several external sources of information such as journal articles or government reports)
  2. overview of what Digital Earth tools or data were explored
  3. summary of the visual component
  4. summary of key findings
  5. critical analysis of the visual component (including a section on ideas for future work on the issue)

9.4.1 Writing Style

In the words of Strunk and White (Elements of Style): Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

For more Strunk and White, see http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html. You may be interested in reviewing section III, Elementary Principles of Composition before getting started on writing your report.

Some other tips:

  1. Use simple English rather than jargon.
  2. Use the active voice (“We examined the results…” rather than “The results were examined”).
  3. Avoid filler words and phrases (“it should be noted that,” “the fact that,” etc.).

Citing Sources

Your paper should have a “References” section rather than a “Bibliography.” It should include all sources you used in your paper (academic and otherwise), and no sources that you did not use. Sources you found that were ultimately unhelpful are not included in the “References.” Use the “author date” system. The author’s last name and the date of the publication are put in parentheses in the text like this (Johnson 2005) and the full citation is included in the References section. If material is quoted directly, a page number is added in the text reference.

Examine the Chicago Author –Date style for details

9.5 Evaluation

The term project makes up 20% of the final grade. The projects will be evaluated according the following rubric.

Component

Grade Value

Written Report

Clarity

15

Depth of Analysis/Critique

25

Formatting

10

Total:

50

Visual Component

Uses DE Data

10

Complexity

25

Visual Appeal

15

Total:

50