Geospatial Mapping at Vassar

Students enrolled in GEOG 228 – Web Mapping: Advanced Approaches to Publishing recently completed their final projects for the semester.  Students in this course create web maps, map apps, story maps using ArcGIS Online,  which offers new opportunities to publicize and share spatial data. Other applications such as ArcGIS Collector app and Open Street Map promote group sourcing of data, which are explored as well.  Students’ final projects were published on Vassar Maps and Apps and can be viewed at the class page. 

Nearly 10,000 solar projects have participated in New York’s open enrollment solar incentive programs over the past 10 years.  The data was made publicly available on Open NY, New York States open data portal.  (See Environmental Leader’s story about the initial release of the data for more information and background.) The data was acquired and organized by Vassar student Toscane Clarey as part of a project for GEOG 228 – Web Mapping: Advanced Approaches to Publishing. This project was intended to increase visibility of solar projects in New York State.  

The points in the map illustrate aggregated solar installations by zip code (or “City”, as is listed in the pop-up window when clicking an individual point.) The total number of solar projects associated with each point, total nameplate capacity in kilowatt hours (kWh), and the total expected output in megawatt hours (MWh) are also listed in the pop-up window. 

Use the zoom buttons (+/-) and pan around the map and explore local installations. Click the button in the upper-left corner [>>] to view the legend, which indicates the aggregated expected output associated with the relative size of the point symbols. 

Note that southern New York contains a higher number of installations and output, and that rural areas appear to be under-served. 

The Geospatial Mapping at Vassar blog is proud to showcase alumni work when available.  If you wish to share examples of your geospatial mapping and analysis work, please email necurri@vassar.edu.  

In her first week at Michael Baker International, an Engineering firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, Emily Webb (Geography-Anthropology, ’16) had already worked on two mapping projects in which she called upon the cartography skills she learned at Vassar.  In her role for the company, Emily explained, “I work with ArcMap to research spatial statistics and to put together maps for project reports.” She also explained that she started using a vector graphics program for fine-tuning labels in her maps — something she picked up on-the-job. Continue reading →

By Annie Greene (Biology ’19), Dylan Finley (Urban Studies ’17)

This semester in Lynn Christenson’s ecology class (BIOL-241), we mapped the locations of trees affected by beavers near the beaver dam at the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. Our studies revealed preferences in beaver foraging in regards to species, tree size, and distance from water.  We used Vassar’s “Maps & Apps” ArcGIS Online implementation and the ArcGIS Collector App on a GPS-enabled Apple iPad to map the location of the trees based on their geographic coordinates.

Continue reading →