Have You Found Yourself Yet?
Have you ever been lost in the forest and had the sudden urge to know were you are? We are the group of young adults that can help you. We are the GPS group of Cascade High School. Robby Davison, Jon Grems, Cole Marben, Charlie McGlashen, and Roger Ritch have taken over the past project of GPS that involves GeoExplorer 3, Pathfinder, and Arcview. In the past the GPS group had only taken data of noxious weeds. This year we have progressed and haven taken data of the Crown Point Trail, Fischer Pond, Mud Creek, and helped with the 7th and 8th grade orienteering project.
What is a GIS?
In a sense, a GIS is a computer system capable of assembling,
storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information,
data identified according to their locations. Practitioners also regard
the total GIS as including operating personnel and the data that goes
into the system.
Geographic information systems GIS technology can be used for scientific
investigations, resource management, and development planning. For example,
a GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response
times in the event of a natural disaster, or a GIS might be used to find
wetlands that need protection from pollution.
Existing digital data is combined in a GIS and displayed using a function
that creates perspective drawings.
There are many uses for GIS, people use GIS for mapping weeds, roads, property lines, even migration so I want to take a little moment to tell you how they use it to track migration.
We use GIS and GPS to help our class and community. We have helped map locations of bat boxes, swallow habitats, washed out roads along Mud Creek, sites for benches, lines of the crown point trail, a line along our community green belt, and an area around Fischer pond. We mapped the bat boxes and swallow habitat so we could keep track of the populations; we also chose spots that were away from houses and businesses so people weren't bothered by the nesting of the swallow around the community. We also positioned these boxes and habitat so that we could use them for mosquito population control. We mapped the washed out roads along Mud Creek so when we did water tests we could see if the washouts had effected water quality. We collected data along the Crown Point trail so that we could print off maps for a brochure and a trailhead sign. This is so people will know how far until a scenic view or a bench to rest at. We mapped around Fischer pond and picked the best places for bat and swallow habitat. We have received our training from a local GIS/GPS expert Jeff Hunteman who has taken time over the year to teach us GIS and GPS.
With all the information that they had with the migration they had to reduce scale size. Each scale reduction requires edge matching, or paneling, of the larger scale maps to produce the next small-scale map. In addition, through the process known as generalization, the amount of information was reduced to make the smaller scale map readable.
Researchers then used the GIS to superimpose the migration routes on maps of oil development plans to determine the potential for interference with the animals.
Global Positioning System is the physical hand held equipment we use to collect the data that we transfer into GIS. The GPS that we use is the Geo Explorer 3, which is a professional GPS. The GeoExplorer 3 is a high quality device; it needs a very high quality signal to function. Because of this you need to be able to contact at least 4 satellites to get your latitude, longitude, and elevation. Since the signal is so tenuous almost anything can disrupt it; dense cloud cover, overhead foliage, and even a sun flare could give you problems. To rectify this problem we use an antenna that allows us to see more satellites. This makes our job easier by tenfold. We also use the Garmin, which is a hand held GPS unit that is more useful in navigating.
Our future plans are to get started on the 7th and 8th Grade Orienteering Project earlier. We go out with the GPS and take the points and map the location where the orienteering takes place. We plan on recruiting more people to join the GPS group. Another plan is to help organize the data for future classes so the maps and data files will be easy to find. We would like to collect data for the noxious weed project that we could send in to the state.
The benefits of GPS and GIS are easily seen when you try to take data without using technology and try to put it on a map. You would pull out all your hair before you got a single point mapped. GPS and GIS experts are also paid a lot of money. In the private sector you could start off at $60,000 a year and with the government you could start off at $35,000 a year with all benefits.
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