My Geographic Information Journal

  This map shows potential camping areas in De Soto National Forest. The areas were determined by their proximities to rivers and roads, needing to be certain distances from each, but also close enough for access to both. The inset map shows where in the state of Mississippi the National Forest is located. This project was very useful for learning how to utilize attribute data and custom specifications to create buffers and the join different buffers together in unions. A huge part of this lesson that took some time for me to figure out was how to use the Erase geoprocessing tool to clip out areas that met all other requirements, but were within Conservation zones. It is important to know how to create buffers meeting ones requirements, but then crop out certain parts of the buffers that do not meet other requirements. 

  This assignment made a lot of sense for me. Being able to create the domains of the map that I was going to be collecting on made it very simple to set things up in a way that made sense in the field. I thought that the different ways that we learned to share a map like this (like the KML file) were simple and got the job done without any hiccups. The only thing that I got majorly confused about was that I had to log back into to ArcGIS pro to see my points after I had collected them. It took me a while to figure out why mine was not working. I also liked learning how to share a map on google earth because many people do not have accessibility to Arc that I work with, but it it easy to tell someone how to go on google earth. This lab brought a lot of things together for me that I have seen the GIS manager that I work with do, but had not learned to do myself. I enjoyed creating the domains because I know what will make sense when collecting in the field, as I have done a lot of t...

  In the exercise I learned how create different map frames and views, and moving around between them. I learned about editing symbology to create a pleasant and clear view for the reader. I learned how to clip out certain parts of a map so that they show only the area of the feature layer that you want to detail. I learned how to swap layers around in different orders to highlight different things. These techniques are very fundamental for creating a map with clear purpose and message, which is important for me in the environmental field, as I will have to portray messages in ways that make sense to viewers who are not out in the field with me looking at things. The biggest areas of this exercise that were difficult for me was when I would follow the directions, but the program would not work properly, such as changing the extent to degrees. No matter what I did, this would not change. However, the majority of the lab was enjoyable for me, and I particularly liked clipping parts o...