Projects

Projects are where you come as close as you can in academia to doing professional GIS. Your project will be a small GIS project within your area of interest. The project will start about half way through the semester and will be completed in groups of one or two individuals..

Project Structure

The project will be similar to one of the labs you have already completed just with a topic that you have selected.

It's best if you split up the tasks based on your areas of interest and skill set. For example, you might split up the data download and qualification tasks. Then, you might have one person do most of the analysis while the other person gets started on the report. Then, you can review each others work.

The most critical part of any project is obtaining and qualifying the data. Once you have the data, the analysis and product creation will flow more easily. If you can't get the data, you can't move forward. If you move forward with data that is not at the level of quality you need, you'll have to backup and repeat steps.

Project Deliverables

During the class you'll be asked to turn in status updates on the progress of your project. The dates for these are documented on the schedule and their description is below. All of these should be emailed to Jim Graham before the start of the first class on the week they are due.

1. Project Proposal

Your proposal should define the topic of your report, the data sets you'll be using, and the analysis methods you'll use. This allows us to evaluate if the project is feasible and meets the requirements of the class. It is also an important first step in communicating between your "supervisor" and your team.

2. Data Collection Results

In less than one page, describe the results of your data collection. Did you find each of the data sets? Do they meet your requirements? If not, how did this impact your project (i.e. if you can't get the data, change the project)?

3. Rough Draft

A big part of any professional product is the review cycle. The rough draft does not have to be perfect. We will review it and give you feedback. You'll want all the content to be in the rough draft but be ready for changes of position, grammar, and color use. We'll also point out anything we feel is missing.

4. Project Presentation

The week before final's week, you'll present your project in your lab sections. This should be a small presentation that takes less than 10 minutes to present. Remember to cover:

• Goal of the project
• Introduce your topic: maps and/or photos help here
• Methods: What steps did you take, especially in the analysis?
• Results: What did you find?
• Conclusion: What did you learn and what are the next steps? Please include the challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
• Acknowledgements: Remember to thank everyone who helped you out and cite your sources!

4. Final Turn-in

Your final turn-in will be a report similar to those we have already done in lab. Remember to include all the necessary sections.

Last Words

• Please make sure the projects are turned into Canvas by 5:00pm Friday, of Finals Week.
• One of the biggest challenges with these projects is picking a topic that fits the time frame. You want to pick something that is interesting but small enough that you can finish the data collection, analysis, and the report before the end of the semester. A good approach is to have one simple question to answer. Below are some examples of real questions that students answered in previous classes and their reports are available at the link in the next section:
  • Where is the trash in Arcata Forest?
  • Where are the good fishing sites near Trinidad?
  • Where are good access points to the Mad River near Arcata?
  • How far has the Grinnel Glacier retreated?
• Also remember that if you can't get the data, you can't finish your analysis and your report. If you can't find the data you want, change your project to use data that is readily available. If you really need to collect field data, you can check out GPS units from the forestry stock room but these take some time to get used to and I recommend using Garmin handhelds if you are not used to the Trimble GPSes.

Previous Projects

Below are links to the projects previously completed by students in GSP 270:

• Fall of 2014
• Spring, 2016