Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Just real interesting





To finish our course here are some interesting ones from the Just Real Interesting Scoop.it

* Houses hanging on!




Interesting futures idea?
  
This daily dose of satellite photos helps you appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things humans have constructed--as well as the devastating.



An Urban World: UNICEF's new data visualization of urban population growth over the next 40 years. This graphic depicts countries and territories with 2050 urban populations exceeding 100,000. Circles are scaled in proportion to urban population size. Hover over a country to see how urban it is (percentage of people living in cities and towns) and the size of its urban population (in millions).



Across cultures, people feel increased activity in different parts of the body as their mental state changes.


"Some beautiful, information-dense cartography, which provide a moment of self-reflection like a giant, geographic mirror.”  Seth Dixon



People get the general shape of the world when the draw a map of the world from memory.



Maps after maps, some quirky some just plain interesting and useful.

Marvel at these global heat maps of popular cycling and running routes. A glimpse into the geography of elevated heart rates and sweaty pits is now available thanks to Strava, maker of GPS-enabled exercise-tracking gizmos. Over time, the San Francisco-based company has collected a lot of user data. Now it's put the info in play in a giant, visual way, with these global heat maps showing the movements of the hardcore huffing-and-puffing populace. The maps include 77,688,848 rides and 19,660,163 runs for a blink-inducing total of 220 billion data points.


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

What if the sea level rose along the Adelaide coastline







If sea level rose

 Go to the site below from the Australian Government GeoScience site to check out the impact of least to most likely sea level scenarios along the Adelaide coastline
http://www.ozcoasts.gov.au/climate/Map_images/Adelaide/mapLevel2.jsp

Check out the impact of maximum rise at West Beach, Tennyson (West Lakes) and North Haven areas

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Applying GIS






Sites related to GeogSplace 
Spatialworlds blog
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website


Scoop.it sites for the class





Modern geography with GIS
Now that we have played with the basics of mapping (grid references, legends, scale, lat/long, topography, contours, site, situation, directions and bearings) it is time to use what all modern geographers use in their work: geographical information systems.

A GIS starter
Work through the GIS focus section on Map Zone (from the UK Ordnance Survey).  This will get you a good background to the nature and use of GIS


What is GIS? from ESRI. ESRI is the software we will use in class. It is called GIS map 10.1. On the GIS site go through the Overview section on:
  • What is GIS?
  • What can be done with GIS?
  •  The Geographic approach?
  • GIS glossaries.

Read this page on what is GIS to give you some background on some crucial GIS terms (Vector and Raster).

Who uses GIS? 
GIS is often associated with making maps, but GIS professionals do much more than that. GIS is used to manage human activities. GIS professionals visualize, analyze, and model our world to help organizations make informed decisions.


Now go back to the Map Zone site and have a go at one of the GIS Missions on:
  • Flood damage control
  • Wind power location
  • Control and command
  • Shopping for profit
  • Farm management
  • Crime stopper
You should now have some background on the nature of GIS, its application and who uses it. Now it is time for you to learn how to use it for your studies.