Geography 336 - Field Methods

Distance Azimuth Survey Method Introduction             Technology within the Geospatial field has exploded within the past few decades. This technology can make surveying today very efficient and accurate, but sometimes technology fails. Therefore, it is important to have an alternative method that doesn’t need modern technology. This lab was used to learn the method of distance azimuth. This method uses a GPS unit and a laser distance finder to perform a survey.             This labs goal was to collect some data on various tree species on Putnam Drive on the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire Campus (Figure 1). Putnam Drive is a nature trail that runs east-west on the southern part of UW- Eau Claire’s lower campus. Eau Claire was a lumber town, so many of the forests that are present today have been replanted. Part of Putnam Drive was never harvested during this t...

Arc Collector Part II: Assessment of Water Street and Chippewa Street, Eau Claire, WI for Rollerblading Introduction Rollerblading is a great way to get outdoors and get exercise within a city, but badly maintained sidewalks can make rollerblading an hazardous experience. Rollerblading is common within college students and Eau Claire is a college town; therefore, the assessment of two major streets for rollerblading hazards was done to try to quantify the hazards in the college portion of Eau Claire. ArcCollector was used to collect data for this study. The various attributes used to assess the hazards of various sidewalks were the number of rocks/Twigs, the amount of sediment present, and the number of cracks/bumps. When walking the study area, a point was taken when one of these hazards was encountered. Methodology The first thing that needed to be done to complete this study was to created a geodatabase within ArcGIS. A file geodatabase was created and named appropriately. T...

Arc Collector: An Introduction to Gathering Geospatial Data on a Mobile Device, such as a Tablet or Smartphone Introduction             This lab used the app Arc Collector to measure the micro climate of various points around the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire campus. The purpose of the lab was to give students an introduction in the use of Arc Collector and the many types of research that it can be used for. In this project, students were separated into seven groups and each group took a various section of campus. The students then used a handheld micro climate device and compass to measure the wind speed, wind direction, temperature at the surface, temperature 2 meters above the ground, dew point, and type of surface. All of the information was collected using Arc Collector and then mapped used ArcMap. Study Area             The study area consisted of the U...