Geospatial Mapping at Vassar

By Katherine Giesa
Urban Studies ’16

Hudson River Housing has developed many affordable properties throughout Poughkeepsie and the mid-Hudson Valley region. This map shows the location of all of their projects as of Summer 2015.

Over the summer I made a series of maps for Hudson River Housing (HRH), an organization working to encourage home ownership and provide affordable housing options for residents of the Hudson Valley. This work was completed for the Geography Field Work course (GEOG 290). Field Work courses at Vassar involve working with a non-profit organization, a government agency, or a business. Nearly every department and program at Vassar sponsors field work.

Vassar’s GIS Academic Computing Consultant, Neil Curri, helped put me in touch with Hudson River Housing and we met with them at the beginning of June to talk about what they would be most interested in seeing from a geospatial perspective. Essentially, they had a list of addresses, a list of properties they were involved with, but no visualization of their work’s location or dispersal across Poughkeepsie or the greater Hudson Valley. Continue reading →

By Ellie Opdahl
Research and Restoration Post Baccalaureate Fellow, VCEE Co-op

Aerial images of the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve (VFEP) taken in the years 1936, 1980, and 2014. The red outline denotes the preserve boundary. 1) Refers to the northwest corner of the preserve 2) refers to the drumlin 3) refers to the shrublands. (click to enlarge)

Beginning this fall, the South wing of the historic cow barns located on the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve (VFEP) will begin to be renovated as headquarters for a greater conservation initiative in the Hudson Valley. Organizations including the newly established Vassar Conservation and Environmental Engagement Cooperative (VCEE-COOP) as well as other like-minded organizations such as the Hudson Valley chapter of the Student Conservation Association (SCA) will be housed in the space. Continue reading →

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) behind Skinner Hall

During the summer of 2015, students participating in two different URSI projects gained experience using GIS and GPS as an integral part of their work. These projects demonstrate some of the range of applications to which geospatial technologies can be applied to assist faculty in their research and help students gain valuable experience, from archaeology field work in the Catskill Mountains and to mapping and inventorying the trees of the arboretum here on the Vassar campus.  Continue reading →