Lab 4: GIS Data Models

Before this lab, I only knew two things about GIS: it layered maps like a cake and it could be applied to many different fields. I was very excited to do this lab for hands on experience on a GIS program— the reason why I took this class. In particular, I was especially interested in learning exactly how GIS works to give scientists and policy makers a better understanding about climate change. For this lab, we primarily used ArcMap, the industry standard for GIS.

That said, using ArcMap GIS was my first time using a ‘technical’ program, but it was still relatively easy. Even after using ArcMap for a few minutes, I could tell that the developers tried making the program very user friendly. Although the GUI was not the most ‘pretty’, the functions were logical and easy to understand. However, the sheer volume of functions to memorize is likely responsible for the steep learning curve mentioned by Professor Shin. The only recurrent problem I had was with resizing a map (i.e. zooming in on a specific part of the map) to fit in a specific data layer.

The step by step instructions on the ArcMap tutorial were extremely easy to follow. A key advantage of ArcMap is that it is extremely dynamic. The software allows users to manipulate and identify many key relationships not noticeable with the bare eye. For example, new features can be added to maps quickly and neatly. However, the lab did not give directions in creating the data sets (i.e. the noise contour and creating the county boundaries). Although I cannot say for sure, I would imagine that this process would be very time consuming—a definite drawback of GIS.

A potential pitfall of ArcMap is that it is only as good as the data it is based on. For example, a small discrepancy in the inputted data may cause a large change in the ArcMap output. Although this is true for any computer program, the data cannot be easily checked since the output of ArcMap is normally a visual. In contrast, a graph or chart has numbers that can be readily checked against recorded data. In addition, I would imagine that the preson

I’m looking forward to learning more features and applications of ArcMap and GIS.