Week 1, Deliverable 2

Find Potential Sites for a Youth Center
The map above depicts potential sites for the location of a youth center in an unnamed city created using ArcGIS. The map was created as part of the first module, Exploring a GIS Map, in the ESRI Virtual Campus course: Getting Started with ArcGIS Desktop.

The criteria for locating the youth center was an available building within an area where the youth population is greater than 75 per census block (a census block is the smallest geographic unit for which the U.S. Census Bureau collects data). The exercise required using ArcGIS tools to identify features based on their attributes and relate them via their spatial relationships with other features. The exercise was a good demonstration of how GIS data is actually referenced back to data stored within the system (in this case on my H: drive) as much of the exercise required looking in tables as opposed to on the map itself to get the result.

I did not have any real issues putting together the map for the exercise. As someone familiar with Structured Query Language (SQL), I was very comfortable working in the attribute tables when using the Select By Attributes dialog box which made the exercise flow smoothly for me. The activity quiz on the other hand, threw me for a loop with the detail in some of the questions, but I took my time and thought through it and was able to pass. Thank goodness.