Module 2: Cartography

The primary focus of this map is Escambia County and some of its key features. If you look to the bottom right side of the map, you will find the legend which will help you navigate to various points of the county including the University of West Florida's main campus, some of the major rivers, and the popular cities. The top right corner of this map includes an inset map which depicts the entire state of Florida and its counties while highlighting where Escambia County resides. 

This module was filled with lots of notes and the lab was filled with lots of trial and error, but the outcome led me to a better understanding of Cartography and GI systems. This week I learned the hard way that you must periodically save your projects, but besides that I learned so much about map making and all of the tiny details and elements that must go into it. 

To narrow down my twelve pages of notes, I learned about all of the historical cartographers and how they shaped the GIS world to be what it is today. From Medieval T-in-O maps being some of the first to exist to Claudius Ptolemy being the foundation of map making as he was the first to use latitude/longitude lines and base the locations in his maps on mathematics rather than political/religious importance. Even learning about Johannes Gutenberg inventing the printing press which allowed or maps to be more accessible to the public, it was interesting and fun to learn about the deep history and growth behind GIS. 

Along with what was previously mentioned, I learned about the various types of data that GIS practitioners need to understand including the difference between spatial data (has an x,y location on earth, such as a tree or a house) and aspatial data (information that does not have a coordinate, such as name, age, or a date.) I learned the two fundamental forms of digital data, vector and raster, and their uses. Federal Geographic Data Commitee standards were also discussed in depth, and I learned that they are necessary to design and maintain data as well as keep GIS ethical and honest. The various feature types, measurement levels, and map design fundamentals were also major components of the readings in this module.

The lab was fun and extremely educational, I found myself getting stuck on adding text and found some difficulties remembering to switch between active frames, but it was a learning process that I did get down and have a better grasp of now. We learned the importance of including various elements in maps, just to name a few: an accurate scale, a legend, the data source, and more. Balancing these elements and ensuring none of them are too disruptive is just as important as including the elements themselves. 

This module gave me a lot of meaningful and important information that will be carried through the rest of my college and professional career, and I look forward to the continued improvements that I will see in my work.