The 2015 Iowa NAIP imagery is now available in three image services on the ISU Orthoserver:
naip_2015_4band
naip_2015_nc
naip_2015_cir
These services can be accessed at http://ortho.gis.iastate.edu/arcgis/rest/services/ortho.
The IowaView Staff attended the AmericaView Fall Technical Meeting on October 22 and 23, 2015, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. The meeting was attended by many of the AmericaView members. It was a good time of collaboration and sharing of knowledge and expertise. Below are three posters that IowaView staff contributed to the poster session.
The new school year has begun. As we trade in our flip flops and towels for shoes, socks, and shirts, the world around us is also signalling the change of seasons. The grass and trees will soon be getting their autumn colors as they fade from their vigorous summer greens and yellows to reds, oranges, and browns. This is a great time to introduce and discuss concepts of seasonal change, phenology,
The Harvard Forest website has over two dozen great resources to get students (5th grade – high school) thinking about seasonal change. Below are several exercises that especially stood out:
IowaView Phenocam – Grand Tetons, WY
A phenocam is a digital camera that takes pictures at set intervals as a way to track the change in vegetation and climatic conditions throughout the year at a given location. The phenocam provides fixed scene, time-lapse images over the course of a year, which can then be analyzed for a variety of scientific uses, including seasonal changes such as spring “green-up” or fall “leaf-off.”
Team members installing the IowaView Phenocam in Wyoming
IowaView has partnered with Dr. Diane Debinski and the Debinski Lab (Iowa State University – Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology) to install two phenocams at their research areas in Iowa – Grand River Grassland and Wyoming – Grand Teton. The IowaView phenocams are part of a larger phenocam network across the USA and world.
Locations of Phenocams Sites
Picture taken by IowaView Phenocam – Grand Tetons in Wyoming
Picture taken by IowaView Phenocam – Grand River Grasslands in Iowa
In the coming weeks, we will provides links for educational opportunities that provide instructions on using the phenocam data in the classroom.
Thanks to the Debinski Lab for their work getting our phenocams running! Great work!
Phenocam Installation Crew in Iowa
Backstory
Over the last year, the Iowa State University GIS Facility has hosted several mapping events to teach groups about the opportunities in online mapping, such as the volunteer efforts of the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team (HOT). In July of 2015, a 4-H seminar was hosted on our campus with the theme Dare to Discover. For the event, the GIS Facility hosted two workshops to introduce Iowan youth (high school) to the world of digital mapping and remote humanitarian work.
Description of Task
The intent of the project was to introduce Iowa youth to the components and importance of mapping, and to interest them in its applications. To accomplish this, we developed three goals:
1.) Provide the students with a background in GIS, remote sensing, and digital mapping.
2.) Teach the students about the OSM and HOT programs.
3.) Start the students working in local and humanitarian areas.
To ensure all students could begin mapping upon arrival at the workshop, we created twenty ‘dummy’ OSM accounts to provide them at the beginning of the session. These accounts allowed us to monitor the students’ progress, while helping to keep them on task and working with the group as a whole.
Workflow
To execute the first and second tasks, we created an introductory PowerPoint to define the fundamental concepts of mapping: from uses of GIS, to the origins of aerial imagery and remote sensing. Hoping to trigger the students’ curiosity, we employed an array of exciting imagery and varied descriptions of field applications. Finally, we showed them the video “Why Map?” on the MapGive website.
For the third tasks, students were asked to begin digitizing the features of a small, unmapped town: Ogden, Iowa. This step was intended to adjust students to working remotely, providing them with high-resolution imagery and a familiar landscape. Using the teachOSM tasking manager, the town was sectioned into small, manageable areas. The trainer presented additional PowerPoint slides and a live demonstration explaining; how to create lines, points, and areas; and label and save after each edit.
Students were asked to spend the first half of the mapping session learning to digitize streets, waterways, houses, and parks for Ogden. After thirty minutes, they transferred to the humanitarian area provided by the HOT tasking manager in Namaacha, Mozambique, where they continued to map for the remainder of the session.
Problems
Fortunately, we encountered very few problems during the workshops. Most students participated readily, and the creation of extra accounts guaranteed no issues with the opening process. Our final review indicated that some students squared or rounded areas, while others did not, resulting in uneven mapping quality between users. A few students working in blocks on the edge of town extended beyond their intended boundary and mapped surrounding farm fields, and a mischievous student drew an imaginary lake in Ogden and several non-existent triangle buildings: quite the surprise for our final editor.
Results
Though this was our third OSM/MapGive workshop, it was our first time using the teachOSM task manager. We feel that the similarity between the teachOSM and HOT mapping interfaces provided organization as we transitioned the students from the former to the latter. The lock-area tool enabled us to delineate areas for individuals to work in, preventing duplicate edits, while providing a manageable area for completion.
To track workflow and understand how well students learned to map in our allotted time period, we analyzed the number of features created; per account, per day, per area. In total, students seemed to take to mapping quickly; creating an average of 51 features each (some mapping only a few, some mapping as many as 120 features). The comparison between edits in Iowa to Mozambique revealed that most students mapped areas of the humanitarian effort more proficiently than they did the town in Iowa, indicating either improved skill or increased interest. In total, students mapped 1031 features over the two-day period.
As a bonus, some of the students commented regarding the differences between the imagery from their state of Iowa, to the HOT area in Namaacha, Mozambique. They became attentive to differences between the sizes of housing, quality of roadways, and other features on the landscape. Though our intent was to introduce students to mapping and online humanitarian efforts, we accomplished yet another wonderful feat: teaching students more about the world around them.
This year Earth Observation Day fell on the Wednesday of our biennial Iowa Geographic Information Council Conference. We held a mapping party and worked on mapping Leon, Iowa and then participated in various projects through the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap task manager.
Open Street Map Editing
Over 40 people volunteered on January 19, 2015 at the Iowa State University GIS Facility for ISU’s part in the worldwide volunteer effort called Open Street Map that is creating a crowd-sourced map of the world that is open source, free and available for any use. The event was held in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr Day of Service in conjunction with the IowaView program (https://www.iowaview.org/).
Volunteers mapped areas in the Philippines, Sudan, Iraq, Bangladesh, and many other areas that have limited maps available for public use.
Morning Session Picture
Picture of Morning Session
Panoramic View of Session 2
Title: Teachers, start your mapping! Free online GIS in the classroom from Esri and ConnectEd
Date: August 19th, 2014
Time: 10am to 11am
Description: Online GIS is a powerful, relatively easy way to get kids thinking spatially and involved in applied, inquiry-based projects. Come to learn more about this wonderful opportunity and bring your ideas and questions about how the use of online GIS can be used to help engage you kids.
For more information and to pre-register: https://learn.extension.org/events/1678
The UNI Geography program has a teacher training workshop in Oskaloosa July 21-22, 2014. The training uses ArcGIS Online and is aimed at social studies and STEM teachers teaching grades 6-12. The 2-day workshop is free, sponsored by National Geographic, and the graduate credit hour cost is greatly reduced. They have three excellent teachers lined up to give the workshop.
Below is a link with more information:
https://www.uni.edu/continuinged/distance/courses/summer-2014/1160611607-geog-41335133-69
