George Hess & Heather Cheshire

Air and space-borne remote sensing systems have been widely used to characterize land use and land cover over large and small areas. These data have provided researchers and planners with information on agricultural lands, forests, wildland areas, wetlands, hydrologic features, and other characteristics of physical environments. We are using a focal species approach to develop a wildlife conservation plan for a rapidly suburbanizing region of North Carolina, USA. The process consists of identifying focal species for planning, mapping potential habitat for each species using remote sensing and GIS technology and combining the maps to depict a regional network of open spaces for wildlife.

Jacquie Ott & Liz Baird

You are interested in studying the life found from the very top to the deepest depths of the Atlantic Ocean. You have a 4 person submersible which can dive twice a day. You have limited maps and limited time at sea. How do you decide the best location to send the submersible? Using GIS of course!

Join Jacquie Ott of the North Carolina Estuarine Research Reserve and Liz Baird of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and find out how GIS is improving our ability to study the oceans. Find out more about the ways students were able to connect with us and obtain data via the web. Learn about life at sea, real time mapping, and how we documented a new coral formation during the summer of 2002.

Mike Loomis & Fran Nolan

Hear the story of how scientists are employing GIS in the service of
protecting the awesome elephants of Cameroon as well as other wildlife and human beings in this beautiful, mysterious part of our world. Mike and Fran will share an award-winning Web site
(http://www.nczooeletrack.org/) devoted to this project in which
thousands of North Carolina students participated virtually.

Trees are Mother Nature's air conditioners. They shade us from the hot sun in the summer time, they remove harmful pollutants from the air we breathe and they help clean the water we drink. Learn how American Forests is helping communities across the country use GIS to measure the effects that the trees have on our lives.

Where would you NOT want to build a house, a mall or a new school? Certain parts of North Carolina are already "out of bounds" for buildings because they are protected as "open space. "Let's see what is protected and look for areas that probably should be protected to benefit clean water, wildlife, recreation and our future quality of life.

My senior project examined the need for effective Critical Incident Response Plans at schools. I examined the advantages and disadvantages of various critical incident response plans. The plans range from no formal plan to virtual video tours.

I used MapInfo to develop a Geographic Information System based Critical Incident Response Plan for Southeast Raleigh High School. I had to merge different sections of the school, design the data base, verify and edit the information, take over 150 digital photos, combine photos and text to assist emergency personnel, add information such as missing rooms and the trailers that were not on the aerial photo of SRHS. Point locations (dots) were added so the photos could be hot linked and emergency personnel can see photos of various locations around SRHS.

I provided Southeast Raleigh High School with the map and data files I created. Also I provided them MapInfo's free viewer Proviewer 7.0 so they can utilize my project.

The Town of Cary has used GIS to cleanup after very large snowfalls, Hurricane Bertha, and Hurricane Fran. GIS can play a vital role assisting the cleanup after natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and large snowfalls. Better decisions were possible by Town of Cary personnel by using GIS. GIS was a vital tool in managing the cleanup efforts of these natural disasters.