GEOG 487
Environmental Challenges in Spatial Data Science

Lesson 7 Overview

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Lesson 7 Overview

Scenario

You have been hired by a conservation group to determine how selective logging practices have changed a rainforested area in the Congo Basin of Central Africa. You must use ArcGIS and Spatial Analyst to determine the number of forest fragments that have been created by logging roads. You also need to characterize the habitat quality of each forest fragment in terms of the ratio of interior to edge habitat, the edge to area ratio, the thickness, and the overall area.

Goals

At the successful completion of Lesson 7, you will have:

  • converted vector data to raster data using Spatial Analyst;
  • created raster regions using Spatial Analyst;
  • calculated thickness, area, and perimeter of raster regions;
  • shared analysis results created in ArcGIS using ArcGIS Online.

Questions?

If you have questions now or at any point during this lesson, please feel free to post them to the Lesson 7 Discussion.

This lesson is one week in length and is worth a total of 100 points. Please refer to the Course Calendar for specific time frames and due dates. To finish this lesson, you must complete the activities listed below. You may find it useful to print this page out first so that you can follow along with the directions. Simply click the arrow to navigate through the lesson and complete the activities in the order that they are displayed.

  1. Read all of the pages listed under the Lesson 7 Module.
    Read the information on the "Background Information," "Required Readings," "Lesson Data," "Step-by-Step Activity," "Advanced Activities," and "Summary and Deliverables" pages.
  2. Read and watch the required readings and videos.
    See the "Required Readings and Videos" page for links.
  3. Download Lesson 7 datasets.
    See the "Lesson Data" page.
  4. Download and complete the Lesson 7 Step-by-Step Activity.
  5. See the "Step-by-Step Activity" page for a link to a printable PDF of steps to follow.
  6. Complete the Lesson 7 Advanced Activity.
    See the "Advanced Activity" page.
  7. Complete the Lesson 7 Quiz.
    See the "Summary and Deliverables" page.
  8. Create and post links to Lesson 7 Maps and App.
    Specific instructions are included on the "Summary and Deliverables" page.
  9. Optional - Check out additional resources.
    See the "Additional Resources" page. This section includes links to several types of resources if you are interested in learning more about environmental data covered in this lesson.