Lab4: Introducing ArcMap

The past two weeks of Geography 7 lab section have been devoted to exploring the ins and outs of one of the more prominent GIS programs, ArcGIS. All in all, learning the basics of ArcGIS was a lot of fun and quite an interesting hands-on experience. Watching information being applied to a map firsthand as opposed to seeing pictures of geographic information systems in a slideshow for the first time was pretty remarkable.

The actual process of using ArcGIS was quite easy. With a guide available on PDF, all of the assigned tasks became intuitive and familiar rather quickly. Though following the instructions available on ArcGIS was very straightforward, problems arose when ArcGIS did not do as I told it to do. I encountered some problems with the size and shape of the frame as well as the colors of the graph. For some reason, the frame refused to switch from portrait to landscape and when I exported the graph, its once vibrant hues immediately turned grayscale. Despite these minor setbacks, playing around with ArcGIS for the first time was magical. I started feeling pretty confident about things my second time through the tutorial and my third time through it was just a breeze.

Programs like ArcGIS have a lot of beneficial potential. For instance, its most basic purpose is to provide a way to simplify data. Rather than having to read both a map and one other variable, geographic information systems integrate the two, reducing the chance of confusion and overcomplexity. Additionally, integrating geography with information provides a way to manipulate information in order to convey various interpretations of the data. The ability to interpret the data allows for many real world applications, ranging from effective crime prevention to proper solar panel placement.

While GIS has its benefits, it is not without problems. While little of the general population has access to the software used in developing geographic information systems, these maps can be found everywhere. Whether it be in newspapers, TIME Magazine, or Reader's Digest, geographic information systems are frequently used by publications to shed light on prominent issues. Readers then absorb the information without questioning the source, accuracy, and implementation of the data. Thus, with some clever adaptation, information that could have been used to create an innocent and useful map can just as easily end up providing biased and less than truthful facts.