GIS 4043 Final Project

GIS 4043 Final Project-Bobwhite Manatee-Sarasota Transmission Line
Story map: https://arcg.is/0uWKCS
Transcript for Story map: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ds-AeR-dRB_fsYmodfzTSCyqluKPZ0nDWVnXhmDmlFg/edit?usp=sharing

This project was one of the hardest GIS projects I have had to do. Not having all the guidance that I usually do with the other GIS projects really left me to try and remember how to do a good portion of the assignment. The background assignment wasn't hard it was very straightforward if you read the material given to you. The real challenge came in with the project itself. When I first started this project I read through the analysis and the first thoughts that I had were "This is already confusing and I haven't even started." I honestly panicked and freaked out because I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to do this project. Thankfully I had friends in the class who was just as lost as me and wanted to work together to get the project done. Instead of working through the first objective, I worked through the second objective. This was a challenge in itself because I was so confused about where I was supposed to get the home's data. I finally figured out what I was supposed to do and it made objective two a lot easier. The longest and hardest objective was objective three. Objective three took forever because I had to go online and grab data to create excel files for schools so that way I could create an address locator for both Sarasota and Manatee county. Creating the excel sheets took a few hours to do because I needed to input in all the data correctly. Once I had everything straightened out I began geocoding the schools and didn't have too many issues with it except the aerial photos that were provided were out-of-date and so I had to go onto Google Maps and compare the lands. The next objective that I tackled was objective one. Objective one wasn't hard except I had some complications on what to calculate to find the total area of conservation lands impacted by the transmission line. I and another classmate had to confer with other students to make sure that we were doing the calculations right and once we spoke it turned out we were. Objective four was the easiest of all the objectives. I was finished with objective four in less than 30 minutes. When all of the maps were done a sigh of relief came over me because the hardest part of the project was finally over with. The next steps I took was taking the maps I had made and creating layouts for my Story map. I ended up making around six extra maps for my layouts so that way I was able to finish color coating properly and putting the right information on the maps. Once I had all my layouts done I did have to go back through and make some final touches but I thought my maps were easy to read and understandable. The last few steps of the project were creating my Story map and typing up my transcript. The last two steps went by pretty easy and I had no issue with them. The project overall wasn't bad because I worked with others to accomplish tasks we were all working on. If this were for a job I would say I would not be able to accomplish the tasks on my own. This was a very difficult project and I am so glad it is finally over with. I definitely do not think, feel, or believe that GIS is going to be a specialty of mine, however, at least I know some of the basics to get simple projects done. This class has been interesting to say the least and I am honestly glad it is over with because even though I learned a lot, it took up a lot of brain storage trying to memorize everything that goes along with it. And with that, I bid ado to you and GIS too.