Student Lesson ArcServer

Lesson Title: World Science
Lessons Summary: In this lesson students will collect information on a country of interest. Students will be asked to compile a set of facts about their country, including major cities, natural resources, economic conditions and the educational system.

Lesson Objective: Students will have the opportunity to explore a country of their choice, gather information and make connections about geography, culture, and/or economics.

Before you begin using this module, you will need to know about using a Web-based GIS viewer. You can do this by watching the tutorial video or working through the tutorial. The tutorial video, student activity, and Web-based GIS Tutorial Viewer can be found at http://gis.lanecc.edu à “Modules” tab à “Tutorial” link. The activity works best with a high speed Internet connection.

Prior Skills: You will need to know how to turn layers on and off, use the ID tool and, zoom in and out of the map, toggle from layers to the legend, and perform a search (Boolean) query.

Remember, computer steps are indicated by a symbol and questions you need to answer are numbered.

  • World Science - Introduction

You will be examining several maps to identify certain characteristics and geospatial patterns.

Type in the National Geographic website below in your browser

http://earthpulse.nationalgeographic.com/earthpulse/earthpulse-map

  • Turn on Population Density and Water Footprint Per Capita.
  • Use the slide bar at the bottom to fade from one layer view to the other.

1)  Describe the pattern of world population density. Talk about where it is very populated and where it is sparsely populated. Use cardinal direction to be more exact in your discussion. i.e. The northern are of …

2)  Describe pattern of Water Footprint per Capita. Use cardinal directions – north, south, east, west - to make your discussion more precise.

3)  Discuss any correlations or exceptions you see in the patterns. A spatial correlation is looking for features or events that occur together. For example: deserts where there is a lack of rainfall - frequent mud slides where there are frequent wild fires – high birth rates where the is low female education rates.

4)  Which areas of the world have the largest water footprint? Why?

  • Uncheck Water Footprint Per Capita and check
  • Check Individual Household Consumption
  • Click on the identity tool

5)  What country consumes more food and fuel than 127 other countries?

  • Type in the following website into your browser. Http://gis.lanecc.edu
  • Go to the Modules tab
  • Click on Server Maps and Lessons Server Maps and Lessons
  • Find the link to World Science
  • Click the Link to the web-based map.

This is the view the map you will be using to gather information about your country.

6)  What country have you chosen to study?

First use the Selection option to zoom into your Country. I will use the United States for the example.

  • Check the Country Layer
  • Go to the Selection tool at the top of the map.
  • Make sure County is the identified layer
  • Choose select by Attribute.
  • Double click Name.
  • Single click the equal sign =
  • Type your country name in the Query box like this ‘United States’
  • Choose OK
  • A dialog box will appear at the top of the page.
  • Open up a spreadsheet document.
  • Copy and paste information into a spread sheet like this:
  • Now follow the same technique to get information about the country you have chosen to study and place it into the same spreadsheet, if you find this too difficult you can record the information in the separate data table.

7)  What is the difference in size between the U.S. and your country? The map data is in meters, the shape area in the last field is square meters.

  • Uncheck Country Outline and check City.
  • Check Capital and expand the layer to see the symbol. Notice the star symbol for capital.
  • Use the identify tool to discover what is the capital of the country you have chosen.

8)  What is the capital?

  • Next you will explore what major biomes can be found in your country. Uncheck all of the layers in the table of contents that are above biome.
  • Check biome and expand the layer. This window should be visible.
  • Zoom in on the country of investigation and use the tool to identify the biomes in your country.

9)  List the major biomes found.

  • Next, measure a body of water - river or lake - that is closest to the capital of your country.
  • Check city, capital, river and lake. You will use the freehand line to draw on the map.
  • Measure the length of a river or perimeter of a lake.
  • Record the measurement in miles and kilometers.
  • The accuracy of information will depend on how skilled you are at drawing on the map and th scale you are using (how zoomed in or out you are) .
  • Hint you may have to use the pan tool to move the map so that the river and lake are in view.

10) What is the measurement? Check your facts laterJ

Use data available in the data layers and the query process to evaluate information. The US HDI is 94, the Birth Rate is 14. Set up a query to compare data.

To query the Population Layer,

  • Turn on Population 2005 and turn off all other layers above the Population layer
  • Right click and choose Query Layer.
  • Double click Field Name: B_Rate
  • Click the operator: > (Greater than - This eliminates all the -999 data ( no data ))
  • Type: 0
  • Click: And
  • Double click the Field Name: B_RATE
  • Click the operator: < (less than)
  • Type in < 14 (to find counties with a birth rate lower than the US.
  • Choose OK

11)  Is your study country listed in this query? How many countries were selected? The total number of countries is 205. What percent of the counties have a birth rate less than 14? (Hint: Number Selected / 205 * 100)

12) Describe the pattern of birth rates less than 14. Where in the world are birthrates lower than in the US?

  • Click on Selection à Clear Selected Feature at the top of the map.

Run another query

  • Right click Population 2005 à Query Layer
  • Set the query to HDI_2003 >= 94

13) How many counties were selected? Where they the same counties with a birth rate less than 14? What percent of counties have a HDI greater than 94? Do you think there is a correlation between HID and Birth Rate? Defend your answer.

Develop one query to compare some demographic value in your country to the rest of the world.

14) Record your query parameters and your results.

a)  Query Layer =

b)  Field Name =

c)  Operator =

d)  Number of counties that fit the query

e)  Percent of counties that fit the query

f)  Describe the general pattern or distribution of counties that fit the query.

15) Identify population areas in your country, which city has the largest population, do you notice a connection between bodies of water, rivers and lakes to population density?

16) Compare infant mortality rate to infant mortality rate in the U.S. Find the life expectancy and contrast that to the mortality rate - what trend do you notice? Why might this be important in understanding the medical needs of this country?

17) If you were going to travel to this country and live in one city for a month, which city would it be? Where is it precisely located? What natural resources would you find? What would the conditions be like?

18) GIS is an important tool to gather a variety of information, statistics and general data, this information is used by many people to identify trends in culture and societies and it will be an important job skill for the future. Look at the list of jobs from the web link below. Which job(s) interests you? How could you find out if that job pays a living wage? What abilities will you need to have in order to work at this job?

http://www.esri.com/industries.html

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GEOSTAC NSF-ATE # 0903330