New Project: Map

Although I was exposed to GIS very early on in my undergraduate degree, Fall 2025 was the first time that I actively began studying GIScience. As with many ‘introductory’ classes, there was a lot of heavy lifting when it came to learning geospatial jargon and thinking spatially. Grappling with different types of joins and Boolean operators challenged the way I think scientifically, and I have yet to be able to understand the applications thoroughly. However, I always loved seeing the concepts I was covering in my introductory class applied in its “workshop” component, and I really felt the synthesis of my academic and experiential GIS knowledge while working on my term project.

While it may not seem like much is changing on a day-to-day basis, I think that working on the final project for my Intro to GIS class really revealed how much detail actually got absorbed and internalized over the course of the semester. Small details, like finding the “Environments” button, and larger concepts, like performing spatial joins, took me no time at all during my final project. From my first “New Project” to using Spectral Indexes, I thought that I would share the skill building and cartographic progression after only 4 months of using ArcGIS platform.

In the very first workshop, equipped with an intimidating 80 pages of instructions, we were tasked with making our first formal map! We practiced working with raster layers and vector feature classes to ultimately represent a Nova Scotian urban park. We continued to tackle the essential ‘feature classes’ in the second workshop, where we also explored and learned how to display different spatial samples. By the third workshop (and, arguably, my favourite), we were introduced to georeferencing, and we used ground control points to overlay an image of Dalhousie University from 1969 over the modern campus.

Throughout the workshops, we applied GIS in multiple intersecting fields, including urban planning and ecology. For example, in our fourth workshop, we learned about tabular and spatial joins by comparing street tree counts in Vancouver dissemination areas. It was in this workshop that we encountered thematic mapping and choosing classifications for the first time. This workshop required critical thinking about the representation of spatial data, and we were given much less instruction regarding cartographic representation in our final maps. As cartographers, there comes a great responsibility in the delivery of information to the public; we would not want to skew perception of data through improper use of cartographic elements. As such, deciding on the right classification, the best colour hierarchy, and even the best base map required careful consideration and reflection. I was really intrigued by the way that GIScience intersected with social science and even psychology. We continued exploring GIS in relation to urban ecology in the fifth workshop, where we estimated fractional cover of tree canopies to determine theoretical ‘plantable’ and ‘non-plantable’ areas in Toronto. I was pleased to get another chance to reflect on my cartographic choices. It was also really fun to get to play around with ‘Local Scenes’ for the first time!

Where workshop five used vector overlay, workshop six used raster overlay to create a plan for a theoretical mine location, and this was one of the cases where the lecture content and the applied component aligned perfectly. I was extremely glad for the ability to put the theory into practice, since I was still struggling to understand raster versus vector applications at the time.

By workshop seven, which was after about 21 hours of guided ‘workshop’ time, we started working with LiDAR. We first learned how to filter LiDAR point clouds and convert them into Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Next, we used the LiDAR point clouds to represent the change in the water level in a beach with a collapsed rock barrier. In the final workshop, we calculated zonal statistics and produced Normalized Difference Vegetation Indexes (NDVIs) and Normalized Burn Ratios (NBRs) for optical multispectral images of a 2023 wildfire in Tantallon, Nova Scotia. Not only were we applying skills from previous workshops (i.e. creating tessellated study areas and performing tabular calculations), but this final workshop set us up incredibly well for the final component of our independent term project!

I was enthralled by remote sensing after these introductory workshops, and I was inspired to take a whole class on this topic in upcoming years!

For our term project, we had to create a study area of a wildfire that occurred in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, in the summer of 2025. We worked on this project in two parts: one in the middle of the semester and one at the end. The first part of the project was framed as a ‘proposal,’ where we needed to demonstrate how a hexagonal study area can be spatially sampled in order to evaluate the effect of wildfires on ecological restoration. I enjoyed the fact that our term project was structured in a way that would be similar to an assignment we could get as working GIScientists. I found this approach to classwork very refreshing and helpful for understanding what kind of specific tasks my future career could entail. 

By the time we were working on the second—and final—part of the term project, there was 1 page of instructions. Here, we were to assume that our ‘proposal’ had been accepted and we were now to use remote sensing to improve our sampling technique for the study area outlined in the initial plan. I found that I was able to combine so many of the skills we had been introduced to in the workshops: spectral indexes (NBR), DEMs, raster overlay, vector overlays, spatial sampling, spatial joins, zonal statistics, and many more. In terms of general pedagogy, having to work on an application-based project mainly outside of structured, scheduled work time, I learned to make efficient use of help resources. Dalhousie’s GIS Center was extremely helpful in answering my questions and helping me understand how to represent difficult concepts (i.e. a tessellation of the study area’s aspect). I felt extremely supported, even though I was working on the project individually, and I had never before experienced such a direct improvement in my understanding of a class from one project! 

Overall, working on my GIS projects and assignments was definitely the most fun part of my term! I found it really encouraging that I was able to see the progress in complexity and in cartographic instinct over such a short period of time; what a rewarding challenge! Moreover, I was really glad to see that the workshops and the term project revolved around ecology, since that is my primary interest as a ‘budding’ biologist. Whether it was in the context of wildfires or urban planning, a large component of the Intro to GIS class explained GIScience as it is applied within different fields, and I loved it. It is difficult to imagine communicating science in a much better way than through GIS and map-making. 

I want to thank the Intro to GIS professor, Dr. Chris Greene, and the lab instructor, Bay Berry, at Dalhousie University for how engaging and approachable they made these fundamental topics. I am extremely grateful that this class was able to provide such a lovely foundation for a subject that I have long been interested in. I look forward to the rest of my GIS journey and learning new skills in the Winter 2026 term.