Lab 3: Downloading GIS Data

Goals and Background

The general purpose of this lab was to become more familiar downloading and using data.  In this lab we focused on primarily population data from the US Census Bureau.  Another goal of this lab was to learn how to join attribute data to a shapefile so that the information could be visually displayed.  Also, there was a general goal of producing a cartographically pleasing map by the end of the exercise.

Methods and procedures

The first step was to download data from the US Census Bureau, the website link was given: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml 
from there, it was relatively straightforward.  You could use either the advanced or guided search options to look for the specific data that you wanted, and you could additionally download the shapefile of Wisconsin Counties in the same location.

Homepage of American Fact Finder

The data was downloadable as a Zip file, which could then be extracted for you to use.  Once you had the information in ArcMap, the next step was to join the tables.  This was done by right clicking on the shapefile of Wisconsin counties and then clicking on the option "join" and connecting it to your downloaded data.

One problem that I ran into was that the population data was not stored in a number format.  This made it difficult when I was trying to map certain qualities different colors.  To solve this problem, I added a new field to the attribute data, made sure that it was listed as numeric.  Then I was able to copy the list of numbers and then produce the map that I wanted.

I used basically the same steps when I was following the specific data that the lab asked for, as when I got to choose my own data, and because of this the data frames looked very similar.

Results and Reflections

When I completed downloading the data and joining them to the shapefile, I took a few steps to try and make the map look more cartographically pleasing, the result is below.

 

 

As far as the goals of the lab went, I believe that I became much more familiar with the process of downloading data from the internet, as well as how to join together data and ways to visually portray that. 

Sources
US Census Bureau:  http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml

Experience with esri Virtual Campus

Introduction

For this lab, we used a course offered on esri virtual campus.  There were several differences between the lab that we did as a course through esri, and our last lab which was not.  Overall I had a very positive experience using esri virtual campus and thought that it worked well for teaching both information and practical skills on geodatabases. 

Advantages to esri

There were several advantages to using esri virtual campus, mainly the fact that it was very intuitive and user friendly.  The layout was straightforward and made it easy to go through.



Screenshot of the basic layout for the course

            Also, during the exercises there were several places where you check to see what it was supposed to look like, so you could know if you had followed the directions right.



An example of a window that appears that shows what the result should look like



 

Finally, esri also had videos that could demonstrate how to do things while having someone narrate it.  The MAG book also has a DVD with it, which can be used when stuck on a problem.  I generally just tend not to use it because I forget about it as a resource.   Overall I found that esri was good way to learn about managing geodatabases.

Disadvantages to esri

I had very few problems when working with esri, aside from the fact that sometimes my screen would look slightly different then what it looked like when I clicked the "view result" links.  Others I found everything offered on esri very useful.

Comparisons and Conclusions

Personally I found the esri lab easier and more understandable than the other labs that we have done so far.  In terms of comparing it to the MAG labs, there were a lot of similarities in that I felt both gave good instructions during the exercises, and also could refer to places with more information (different places in the MAG book or links to information on esri) but esri was better in respect to actually showing you what the screen should look like.  It also had the advantage of being able to show a video which was also very helpful and just not possible with the MAG labs. I would recommend using esri in the future and keeping it as part of the Intro to GIS course.

Sources:

All screenshots from esri.com