Donna Wendt

Teaching with ArcView: South America Geography Project and Bond Election Maps

Abstract:

Two ArcView projects were developed as the first introduction of GIS into Ridgecrest Elementary School in Puyallup, Washington. These projects, a South America geography project and school bond voting pattern maps, were intended to be easy to understand and directly applicable to existing classroom projects and current events. The geography project is generic and could easily be used in other classrooms as an introductory ArcView project.

Done on a volunteer basis, the geography project development was set up for the school with design and data input from the teacher and students. Due to bond campaign restrictions, the voting pattern maps were done exclusively by the GIS professional without student participation; the ArcView project has been made available for classroom review after the election.

The South America ArcView geography project was added to an existing country research project done by sixth grade students. After two months of research, there is a festive two-hour classroom display of papers, art work, food, and music from the country. Parents are invited to attend. The GIS mapping presentation worked nicely into this event. As input into the mapping project, students provided a paragraph about their country, pictures and a paragraph about themselves, and an entry into a spread sheet containing thematic data such as population and literacy rates. The GIS analyst combined the student input with pictures from the countries and national anthems for country hot links and thematic mapping.

The second project, school bond election pattern mapping, was done using election data provided by the Pierce County Auditor, street and precinct data from Pierce County GIS, and 1990 census data. A series of maps were made and provided to the citizen's bond committee. Based on analysis from the maps, an editorial was written taking into account the apparent voting issues from the previous election.

The applications were written mainly with ArcView, Avenue, and Excel. ArcInfo was used to reformat some of the data bases used for the election maps.


The South America Geography Project:

An annual tradition for Mrs. Canalles' sixth grade class at Ridgecrest Elementary School in Puyallup, Washington, is the South America Geography project. The students work for two months doing research on the Internet and in the library for their chosen country. At the end of the two months, students display their research papers averaging around ten pages, art work, music, and food from their country in the classroom. Parents are invited to this festive event.

ArcView mapping was added to the 1997 geography project. From a map of country outlines [1] student data and images were used to make thematic maps and hot links to each country. Since this was the first ArcView project for the school, the GIS analyst did all of the ArcView setup work. Students wrote a summary paragraph about each country, took digital photos of authors by country, and wrote about-the-author text files for hotlinks. They were also responsible for entering data into a spread sheet containing a row for each country and columns for data that could be used in thematic mapping. Data categories, chosen by the teacher, were population, gross domestic product per capita, religion, female and male life expectancies, export products, area in square miles, national sport, current leader, type of government, population, and literacy rates. There are many other possibilities for statistics, such as percent of forest cover, which can be added in future projects.

Not all of the countries in South America were chosen for reports, and not every cell of the spread sheet was filled. In the following map examples, the missing data is usually displayed in white. This map shows the basic starting point for mapping, just the country outlines and names:

Countries of South America

The hot links for the flag, a picture from the country, and the national anthem were combined together. This was the first demonstration done in the class, and it proved to be quite an attention-getter. Each student wanted to see the flag and hear the anthem from his or her country.

Flag, National Anthem, and Picture Hotlink

In the above picture, a sample image is shown in place of an actual Argentina photo, but in an actual student project country images from the Internet or reference sources can be used.

The authors' picture and about-the-author and country overview paragraphs shown below were provided by the students.

Author Text, Author Image, and Overview Hotlinks

After the hotlink demo, everyone was paying attention, and thematic mapping was covered next. No changes were done to students' legend categories from the spread sheet. Following are a few of the maps that were done:

Literacy Map

Gross Domestic Product Map

Female Life Expectancy Map

Population Map

Project Setup:

To set up the project, first make a directory for the whole project, such as "samerica." In that main directory, put the map shape files for the country outlines, main rivers, and any other map themes that are desired, like climate areas or animal habitats. The ArcView project file, samerica.apr, should be in this main directory. The spread sheet of thematic data with one row per country should go here too. Make sure that there is one column in it that matches the country key used in the country shape file so a file join can be done in ArcView. Save the spread sheet in dbase format (cntryatt.dbf).

In the attribute table for the country shape file, insert 6 items for the path names to the 6 hot links: national anthem, authors' picture, about-the-authors text, flag image, country photo image, and country overview text file. Now, set up one directory per country, using the country's name. Inside each country's directory, create the following hotlink files:

Bring up the country attribute file and fill in the path names to these files. If the project is started from a copy of an existing one, the file setup should be simple and apparent. There are two Avenue scripts used, one for hotlinking the midi files and another for displaying bitmaps. These examples were done on a Windows 95 machine, and changes would need to be made for other computers.

Recommendations and Conclusions:

The ArcView geography project is a great one for getting familiar with GIS. Basic mapping concepts are included, but the setup is kept simple. If it is the first project for a school or a teacher, the GIS professional should do most of the setup work. After reviewing some of the steps in setting up this project, teachers and students should be able to do basic ArcView projects on their own, with just some coaching. In the author's opinion, the geography project could be made appropriate for grades 4 and up. The sixth graders were a fun and enthusiastic group to work with. A real advantage of working with this grade was that they were mature enough to do a research paper, and being in the same classroom all day meant that subjects do not have to be chopped up into 1-hour classes. As in real life, the project could combine skills from many areas, such as geography, writing, art, music, and computers.


The School Bond Election Mapping Project:

After four defeats at the polls, the Puyallup school bond was on the ballet one more time in March, 1997. A third high school was badly needed to meet increasing student enrollment, and a junior high school needed replacing. To help pass this bond, a proposed ArcView project would map voting patterns from the failed bond vote number four, plus census data maps of the area. The original intent of this project was to involve students, look for clues and patterns from the maps, and brainstorm how to pass the new bond vote. However, upon finding out that using school resources to promote the bond was not legal, the project was taken on by the GIS professional alone.

Election data was provided by the Pierce County Auditor's office, and streets and legislative boundaries were provided by Pierce County GIS. Census data was taken from the 1990 block group statistics. The voting data was in two parts, county-wide absentee votes recorded by 4 large polygons, and the rest of the votes, including vote-by-mail precincts and precincts with polling stations, both of which were recorded by precinct. It was reported that the last election was lost by the absentee votes. The map of this vote is one of the most revealing of patterns, and it verifies the statement about the absentee votes. The new proposed high school is to be located in the extreme southeast corner of the school district. On this map, the "no" vote increases with the distance from the new high school.

Percent NO, Absentee Vote Map

A similar voting pattern, although not as striking as the absentee vote, shows with the precinct data. Notice that the vote-by-mail districts seem to be more negative than adjacent precincts with polling places.

Percent NO, Precinct Vote Map

Other election maps produced for the project not shown here include:

Some of the census block group data was very interesting. The patterns of low median household income very much looked like the map of percent of people over 25 with no education beyond high school. A correlation using Excel was run between low median household income and the percent of people without college education using the data from the entire Pierce County area, and the correlation was -1, a very strong negative correlation. Whether or not it was valid to correlate summary data can be left up to the professional social statisticians; however, it is fairly safe to say that with more education you can earn more money.

Median Household Income Map

Percent Without College Education Map

The census map showing the percent of people over the age of 60 did not match the no-vote pattern as much as the map with percent of households with no children under the age of 18. Not shown is the map of highest unemployment areas which did not match the voting patterns.

Percent People Over 60 Map

Percent Households With No Children

Conclusions:

Based on information from the maps and data, an editorial was written promoting construction of the new high school to relieve crowding in both of the current high schools. District-wide needs, such as the replacement of Edgemont Junior High in the extreme north end of the school district, were emphasized. The correlation between education and income was mentioned in the context of supporting students in quality education as an investment in their future.

The bond vote was approved with a 62% yes vote, largely due to an excellent campaign by the citizens' committee and a scaled-down design and lower cost for the new high school. The maps confirmed previous information but showed very clearly and quickly the voting pattern from the failed election. The mapping project was done just before the new election; the next time it is done, it should be done several months ahead to be of maximum help to the school district and citizens' committee.

REFERENCES OR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

[1] Environmental Systems Research Institute. ArcWorld. Redlands: Esri, 1994.



About the Author:
Donna Wendt, Senior Technical GIS Analyst, City of Tacoma Planning and Development Services
email: dwendt@ci.tacoma.wa.us
Address: 747 Market Street, Suite 900
Tacoma, WA 98402
Phone:(253) 591-2052, FAX: (253) 591-2002