Geographic Information Geographic Information Systems at Washington CollegeSystems at Washington College

Stewart Bruce, GIS Program Coordinator

Center for Environment & Society

GIS Mission and Purpose

• To provide quality academic courses to the students of Washington College

• To provide technical support and continuing educational opportunities to faculty, staff, and students who desire to utilize GIS in their teaching or research projects

• To engage the students in experiential learning opportunities by actively seeking out relevant community projects

Students are the central focus of the GIS Program

Very Important Staff

Nichole Bryant (’09)GIS Educator

Caryn Thomas (’05 M ‘09)Crime Analyst I

Andrew WrightCrime Analyst II

Samantha Bulkilvish (’09)GIS Educator

Funded Projects – Sept 2007 to Oct 2009 Funding Level

GOCCP # 3 Maryland Crime Mapping $216,000

GOCCP #2 Maryland Crime Mapping $189,000

Maryland Higher Education Commission $164,511

USDA Distance Learning $101,430

Tuscarora Intermediate Unit 11 $100,000

GOCCP #1 Eastern Shore Crime Mapping $96,000

Dover Area School District $33,440

Red Lion Water and Sewer Infrastructure $28,469

TEDCO Incubator Feasibility Study $25,000

Urban Greening Initiative $12,500

Kent, QA, and Talbot County BRAC $10,500

William Penn School District After-School GIS $10,000

Swanstrom Foundation $10,000

Bay Hundred Foundation - St Michaels $2,750

Sassafras River Association $1,900

Kent County Chamber of Commerce $1,900

PRWA - Grant Assistance $1,800

GIS Workshops $1,145 Grand Total $1,006,345

GIS Program Focus Areas

1. Community Visualization 2. Municipal Infrastructure3. Crime Mapping & Analysis 4. Historical & Archeological 5. Environmental Sciences6. Youth & Geospatial Technology7. Faculty, Staff & Student Assistance

1. Community Visualization1. Community Visualization

Students Contributing to the Projects:Samuel Evans, Brendan Blee, Buffy Conrad, Matthew Barger,

Andrew Hale, Doug Pfaff & Clift Greene

Summer Camp Students:Kevin Kitlinski, Bryce Williams, Kim Miller, Steven McFalls

St.Michaels, MD

• Pressure from developers.

• Local authorities need to be able to visualize their community with these developments.

• Our advanced techniques can do just that.

• Graciously funded by the Bay Hundred Foundation

Scan & Georeference Aerial Imagery Scan

3-D Visualization

Finished Product

Chestnut Street Birds Eye View Chestnut Street Regular View

Historic Lots vs Miles Point

Other Projects & Goals

• Chestertown 3D

– Students in Intro to GIS making 3D buildings

of campus structures

– Interns working on downtown Chestertown

2. Municipal Infrastructure2. Municipal Infrastructure

Students Contributing to the Projects:Kisato Takenaka, Brendon Kisato, Sam Evans, Chris Brown,

Dan Sause, Matt Barger & Debby Cooper

Infrastructure Projects

• Red Lion Municipal Authority • Town of Church Hill• Village of Worton • Washington College Campus

• Georeferencing water and sewer system .

• Scanned paper maps.

•Global Positioning Units used to map features in the field.

• Spatial correction of previous mapped features.

Red Lion Municipal Authority

3. Crime Mapping & Analysis3. Crime Mapping & Analysis

Students Contributing to the Projects:Debby Cooper, Samuel Evans, Jessica Smith, Stephanie Olsen,

Caitlin Carter, Janna Void & Chris Brown

Crime Mapping Analyst: Caryn Donophan & Buffy Conrad

Overview

• Pro-active tool that helps law enforcement to allocate patrol and specialized expertise in their own communities as well as across traditional political boundaries

• Sponsored by the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP)

• Provide students with an opportunity to work on real world GIS problems that can be applied later to potential careers

First Grant

•ecember 1, 2007, received more than $95,000 from the State of Maryland’s GOCCP Statistical Analysis Center.

– Support an assessment of regional crime mapping across Caroline, Cecil, Kent, Talbot and Queen Anne’s counties and their inclusive municipalities and towns.

•he project is evaluating current crime data collection methods and will conduct a pilot project that explores the benefits of regionalization of mapping resources

Second and Third Grant

• Produce maps for the Governor’s office

• Produce maps for law enforcement agencies

• Provide training and support for crime analysts state-wide

• GIS Program is at the beck and call of the Governors office.

Hotspot Analysis

Crime Mapping Analysis Program (CMAP)

• On demand mapping for GOCCP

• http://goccp.washcoll.edu/cmap.php

Examples

Geospatial Technology Training

• Completed two classes with new class to start in October– Classes taught using Adobe Connect – Classes spread over 14 sessions once per

week on average– Time to absorb new material and practice

newly learned skills

Technical Assistance and Assessments

• Provide technical support with GIS– Utilize Adobe Connect allowing remote support– Also come on-site for one on one training

• Provide on-site assessments of GIS utilization too– GOCCP referred and direct contact

DPSCS Division of Parole and Probation

• Around 123,000 active cases• Violence Prevention Initiative• Data requests from local law enforcement• Spatial queries from DPP case officers• Simple solution needed to share data

DPP MAPJUST THE FACTS

• Functional specifications determined by Washington College based on assessment of DPP and law enforcement needs

• Programming developed under subcontract by geographIT• Hosted at secure facility in Reading• Password access with usage logging• Running on ArcGIS Server 9.3 with SQL Server Enterprise

loaded onto a powerful IBM Server • Weekly updates on Monday• Running since March 2009

Demo of DPP Web Map

4. Historical & Archeological4. Historical & Archeological

Students & Staff Contributing to the Projects:Buffy Conrad , Debby Cooper, Stephanie Olsen, Chris Brown &

Matthew Barger

CHESTERTOWN HISTORIC GEOGRAPHY PROJECT

• Uses historic Sanborn maps & census data.

• Objective: To create interactive maps to

highlight historic properties.

– Allows user to analyze demographic trends

• Final product will be available to the public.

How We Got Started

• Georeferenced Sanborn maps to current GIS data.

• Digitize the maps and include relevant data.

Sanborn/Picture of Digitized Portion with Annotation.

Georeferenced with current center line data and digitized building outlines.

Digital Information

• Created Microsoft Access databases to store census data from 1900, 1910 & 1920

Bringing it All Together

• Data allows us to link historic photographs, deeds & other records.

• Historic photographs allow us to create 3-D renderings of Historic Chestertown.

Archeology within GIS

• Consolidating and organizing four years of field school data.

• Utilizing the predicitive model created by John Seidel, Tom Davis & Darrin Lowery

5. Environmental Studies5. Environmental Studies

Students Contributing to the Projects:Samantha Bulkilvish, Kate Ballard, Josh Biringer, Caitlin Carter,

Dalbir Kaur, & Deanna Dydynski

Tree Inventory

• Mapped Tree Canopy Coverage• Run analyses with this layer on CITYgreen program.• Determines water runoff and carbon sequestration.

Digitized Tree Canopy Layer

Tree Inventory

• Analysis Reports

created to propose

increase in canopy

coverage.• Currently, 23.9%• Goal of 40% Coverage!

Sassafras River Analysis

• Mapping Water Quality of the River with the Sassafras River Association

• Measure maps of pH, phosphate, turbidity, and Nitrogen levels.

Land Use• Creates polygons to show

land use/land cover of the land in Kent and QA County.

– Farmsteads, residential areas, field use, forest and wetlands.

– Highlights the best management practices on agricultural land.

– Using modified Anderson classification system.

Land Use

• Why is this important?– Calculates different percentages of land use. – Easily compare past and future mapping in this

area. – Information will be used by Chester River

Association, Sassafras River Association & Kent County Soil & Conservation.

• Future Revenue Potential• Can answer questions such as:

– What is the growth of residential area?– What is the loss of wetlands?

Chester River Project

• If it is not floating down the river, map it.

6. Youth Geospatial Technology6. Youth Geospatial Technology

Students Contributing to the Projects:Nichole Bryant, Kate Ballard,

Deanna Dydynski, Caitilin Carter & Josh Biringer

Students Writing CurriculumSam Evans, Andrew Hale, Brandon Blee, Kisato Takenaka, Doug

Pfaff, Marrion Robbins, and Staff Caryn Donophan

BRAC Grant

• Distance Learning Training • Security Clearance Training• Secondary Education• Summer Programs• Chesapeake College

Distance Learning Training

Security Clearance Training

Secondary Education

Summer Programs - Youth

67 youth with 55 from Maryland

Chesapeake College

• Teaching two Introduction to GIS courses for adult members of the local workforce– Industry– Government– Education

• Nine week class meeting once per week• External partnerships make grants more

competitive

Course Development

• Four full semester long GIS courses– Introduction to GIS– Intermediate GIS– Advanced GIS– Capstone Project

• GIS augmented Science modules• Moodle course development• Open source curriculum development

– Free to any K-12 school in the World

Future Directions

• BRAC renewal grant submitted for $92,000• Exhibited at National Geospatial

Intelligence Conference in October• Connecting with more secondary schools• Revenue-based workforce development

program in development• Resubmission of NSF ITEST grant in

February 2010

7. Faculty, Staff & Students7. Faculty, Staff & Students

Students Contributing to the Projects:Buffy Conrad, Samuel Evans & Nichole Bryant

Faculty Projects

• Dr.Sherbondy: Historical Map of Allen,MD

• Dr. Susan Vowels: Use of GPS Units

• Dr. Gerrity: Analysis of Election Results

• Dr.Wade: Analysis of World Demographics

Faculty Projects

• Dr.Sherman: Chino Farms Project & Upper Chester River

• Dr.Lampman: GIS & Anthropology Presentation

• Dr. Siedel: Support of the field school• Dr. Lange: Crime Mapping Presentations• Support of GRW courses

Staff Assistance

• Poster Printing• Scan Building Plans• Lighting analysis of campus• Public Safety – 9-1-1 Project

Students

• Teach 2 Courses in GISIntroduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - Fall SemestersGeographic Information Systems (GIS) provide researchers, policy makers and citizens with a powerful analytical framework for decision making. GIS has advanced the way in which many disciplines examine problems by incorporating components of space and time that were not previously considered. An introduction to the principles and theory behind geographic data and experience in the use of state-of-the-art GIS software and related equipment will be provided. This course will be taught using a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on interactive tutorials in the laboratory/classroom. Authentic cross-disciplinary case studies and examples will be used throughout the course with the goal of helping students understand the principles of Geographic Information Systems and its potential applications in their fields of study.

Intermediate GIS - Spring SemestersThis course explores the latest techniques and technology used in GIS. Students will be exposed to advanced cartographic techniques, 3D maps, spatial analysis, geodatabases, and global positioning systems. A computer-based laboratory provides the opportunity for students to participate in a real-world research project from data collection to final map presentation.

Enrollment – Introduction to GIS

Connections to Majors/Minors

• Introduction to GIS counts as an Elective to:– Environmental Science– Anthropology– Information Systems– Crime, Law, and Justice

8. Challenges8. Challenges

Growing Pains

• SPACE

• Network Issues

Center for Environment & Society

Contact Us

Stewart BruceGIS Program Coordinator

410-810-7177sbruce2@washcoll.edu

John L. SeidelDirector, Center &

Environment Society410-778-7756

jseidel2@washcoll.edu

www.gis.washcoll.edu