Missed Our Mapathon?
Did you miss our mapathon or weren’t able to attend because you aren’t in the area? You can still contribute to the effort. 🙂
Category Archives: Education
A Great Day For Earth Observation – Part II
The second part of Earth Observation Day was dedicated to using OpenStreetMap to remotely map Wayland, Iowa and Mindanao region of the Philippines.
Amy Logan, an IowaView staff member, gave a brief introduction to remote sensing and OpenStreetMap. Then mappers began working on a TeachOSM task – Improving the Iowa OSM Basemap: Wayland, Iowa (https://tasks.teachosm.org/project/981). Beverly Conrad, the city clerk of Wayland came for the mapathon and was able to provide local knowledge about the areas participants were mapping. New mappers were encouraged to do the OSM iD Editor Walk-through before they began mapping. It provides users with a nice hands-on introduction of the OpenStreetMap interface and how to create data.
Wayland is a small town (population: 966) in southeast Iowa that has wanted to move towards a GIS asset management system, yet much of their city needed to be mapped. As a result of the volunteer efforts of our 22 mappers during the Earth Observation Day mapathon event, partcipants mapped over 70% of the city, including over 470 buildings as well as sidewalks, alleys, parks, and other points of interest. Below is a before and after screenshot of the OpenStreetMap basemap for the City of Wayland, Iowa.
Thank you, Mappers!
The second project was a Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Task improving the basemap in the Philippines to promote food security. This project added details to the basemap such as minor roads and path, buildings, and farmland.
Loess Hills: Iowa Landforms Revealed
Obscured from view by vegetation and built structures, Iowa’s often subtle landforms are revealed through a LiDAR-derived bare earth digital elevation model in a Geographic Information System. Geological and human made features can be seen in this series of LiDAR color hillshade maps from across the State.
Loess
Deep deposits of wind-blown silt define the Loess Hills region of western Iowa. Intricate drainage networks and agricultural terraces are visible in this map from along the West Nishnabotna River near Hamburg.
Coming Soon: Earth Observation Day – Tuesday October 15, 2019
When: Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Where: GIS Teaching Lab, Room 248, Durham Center, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
This year the ISU GIS Facility in collaboration with IowaView will be celebrating Earth Observation Day. This year the theme is “Geoscience is Everywhere.” We have a great day planned.
To start out our day at 10:30am, Professor Peter Wolter will share how he is using remote sensing to measure forest structure and composition. Then we will have a Humanitarian Open Street Map Event 11am-12:30pm. No experience is needed. First, we will have an Iowa-Focused activity 11:00am-11:45am and then we will focus our efforts on an international Humanitarian OpenStreetMap activity from 11:45am-12:30pm. We will also have pizza and you are encouraged to try our new puzzles.
REGISTER NOW: https://forms.gle/pDeEHbLY1eEV6Ejq7Ejq7
AmericaView’s YouTube videos rock!
Are you new to remote sensing? Are you moving from using ArcGIS Desktop to ArcGIS Pro? Would you like to learn how to better use E-Cognition?
Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne, a professor at University of Vermont and the Director of Spatial Analysis Laboratory has produced an amazing collection of videos which range in scope for those just beginning in remote sensing and GIS to advanced topics and demonstrations.
Here’s the link to Jarlath’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZb1tQu3rctbyuUQLa1vWnQ. He writes a blog called Letter from the SAL (Spatial Analysis Laboratory.)
Happy Earth Observation Day!
Gregg Hadish gave a great presentation about the Iowa Geographic Map Server to celebrate Earth Observation Day. It was a hands-on demonstration of the Iowa Geographic Map Server ArcGIS App which meant participants could follow along as he explained the various features and functions of the map server. Gregg also showed participants how to leverage map server layers within their own ArcGIS Online organizational accounts and basics for creating their own apps.
Thank you, Gregg for a great demo!
Here are some pictures from our Earth Observation Day event.
Checking out the new statewide 1 ft color infrared imagery in the web app.
Gregg giving an introduction to the Iowa Geographic Map Server.
Showing a historical layer – 1880s Andreas Atlas.
GIS – Your Passport to Adventure
On June 27, 2018, IowaView hosted another workshop as part of the state 4-H conference. This workshop provided 4-Hers with an introduction to world of GIS. Students experienced using ArcGIS Online (an online mapping tool) to explore European migration. Next they used ArcGIS Pro to work in groups to design a neighborhood park. Finally, the 4-Hers looked at several examples of Story Maps (seen below).
•Basic Story Map – Olympic Games – http://www.arcgis.com/apps/StoryMapBasic/index.html?appid=efc82690d8f649019caa8e2fe1b49382
•One World, Many Voices: Endangered Languages – http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2013/endangered-languages/
•The World in 1812 and 2013 (Spyglass) – http://story.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingSwipe/index.html?appid=b8ece5952db443858442f122984602ba&webmap=8ea34ba9a4f843e08a468595d8d91188#
Open Street Map – Your Passport to Adventure
IowaView hosted a workshop on June 26, 2018 as part of the annual State 4-H Conference. The workshop provided 4-Hers with an introduction to OpenStreetMap and online mapping for community service and humanitarian aid purposes.
The workshop began with an introductory lecture and then students completed two projects. The first project was mapping in Glidden, Iowa. IowaView partnered with ISU Geospatial Extension to help them improve the OSM basemap by creating more complete data for streets, sidewalks, alleys, parks, and crosswalks as part of a community planning project. The 4-Hers were encouraged to use Google street view in addition to the OSM imagery to get better views of the sidewalks and crosswalks which can often be obstructed by trees.
The original view (no sidewalks)
The group also had a short time to work on a project with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team helping map buildings in Osaka, Japan as part of their earthquake recovery efforts.
ITAG 2018 :: June 12-15, 2018 :: West Des Moines, IA
This week we are highlighting a number of upcoming geospatial conferences and the organizations that they representing. Conferences are a moment to learn something new, hear about great work that our colleagues are doing, find opportunities for collaboration, share knowledge, and have fun.
ITAG is the Iowa Technology And Geospatial Conference. The ITAG conference is a joint effort between the Iowa Geographic Information Council (IGIC) and the Iowa Counties Information Technology (ICIT) organizations. This conference is unique, in that it offers two GIS tracks and two information technology (IT) tracks. This is helpful as many GIS professionals are also involved with IT as part of their job. This is the second year of the joint conference.
ITAG is June 13-15, 2018 at the West Des Moines Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines, Iowa. There are pre-conference workshops on June 12. For registration information, click here. For a detailed agenda, click here.