Due by our next class meeting -- I want you to put together a proposal for the kind of GIS project you would like to work on in GIS 303. In order to assure your proposal is feasible, please base it on available datasets that you can find online (i.e.Map Services - Feature (ArcIMS) or that are available here in lab (check the ESRI folder on your local computer's c-drive). While I can't guarantee that we will be able to do everything proposed, this will help me get an idea of what skills we need to focus on most for you to complete the project.

Some of the ways GIS is used:

Emergency services - Fire and Police
Environmental - Monitoring and Modeling
Business - site location, delivery systems
Industry - Transportation, communication, Mining, Pipelines, Healthcare
Government - Local, state, federal, military
Education - Research, teaching tool, administration

Specific examples:

Using GIS to analyze and query datasets of demographic and housing data to answer geographic questions such as
- Where are my best customers?
- Who lives in my neighborhood?
- Where is the best place to locate a business?
- Where are certain social groups concentrated and why?
Buffering to research how proximity is an important risk factor in exposure to pollution.
Overlay aerial and satellite photographs for land-use and ecosystem management.
Compare historical maps and photos to see what change has occurred.
Predict future trends and plan for expected change.
Create custom maps that explain an important geographic problem or issue.

For your proposal please specify:

1. What is the purpose of the project - i.e. what is the final product going to be?
2. What kind of data is needed? From where and at what scale is the data? Raster? Vector? Tabular?
3. Where is this data available and is it free? Please give me the url or pathname.
4. What concepts and tools learned so far are needed to complete the project? (overlay, buffering, query builder, etc.)
5. Are there additional tools and concepts you want me to teach you about so you can complete the project? (e.g. network routing analysis, 3-D modeling, statistical analysis and representation, etc.)
6. How much time do you estimate it would take you to complete the project.

Projects are are due and will be presented the last day of class.