Post - Activities
Level 3: GIS Veteran Looking for a New Challenge--
How can I design real-world projects using GIS?
Activity 1: GIS Community Collaborations
Contact a GIS professional in your community and suggest
a collaboration for your school project.
Activity 2: Share Your GIS Project with us!
Share
your school's GIS project with us! Send
us a link to your project's Web page and we will exhibit it for
you in our "Virtual Exhibits".
Activity 3: Analyze
GIS LIVE Team Challenge
Go to the GIS LIVE Team Challenge results
(to be posted after the event). Use other schools' information to compare
their results to your results using GIS. Look for patterns and generate
new possibilities. Report your experience and what you find to us on
a Web page and send it to us. Students can create project posters free
and easily on the web at www.4teachers.org.
Activity 4: Try Using GIS Software to explore your world.
There are several free GIS software packages available.
ArcExplorer
ArcExplorer is a free GIS Data Viewer for educators. It can be used to display and query
locally stored GIS data and can be used for very basic (no editing of data or new data creation)
GIS activities in schools.
Quantum GIS
"Q" GIS is a very user-friendly
GIS software that will run on Windows, Macs, and Linux systems. "Q" GIS is a fully functional
GIS package that will allow editing of existing data and creation of new data. It reads
most all common GIS data formats, including ESRI shapefiles. Here's a
short video showing how to use the software.
uDIG - User-Friendly Desktop Internet GIS
uDig is
a spatial data viewer/editor, that also allows you to connect to internet map services as
data sources. uDig is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Macs, and Linux. There is a
basic tutorial
here, under the "Getting Started" section.
JUMP - The Unified Mapping Platform
JUMP is a GIS application for
viewing and processing spatial data. It includes many common spatial and GIS functions.
In addition to offering basic GIS viewing and editing functionality, it also provides
a framework for developing and running more advanced spatial data processing applications.
This more sophisticated software will be most appropriate for High School students. Here is the
user guide for JUMP.
NASA's World Wind
World Wind is a revolutionary new 3D world viewer that lets
you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there. Virtually
visit any place in the world, or the Moon, or Mars. World Wind also includes a Scientific Visualization Viewer that allows
you to view weather patterns, global fire data. World Wind runs only on Windows, and requires a recent Windows Operating
System (no Windows 95, 98 or ME), a good video card, and a high-speed internet connection (No Dial-Up). World Wind can
also has several plug-ins for GPS devices and letting you visualize your GPS data on a 3d globe. There is a very extensive
user forum and help site, in addition
to the NASA user guide.
