My Students' (Barnard GIS class Spring 2013) Project Titles

I'm pretty excited to read my class's final GIS projects. They all worked very hard and I hope they learned something about GIS and technology. Have a great summer class!

Report Titles:


Evacuating the Elderly: Immobility and Isolation in New York City Residential Building in Hurrican Evacuation Zones


Success in the Big Apple: An Analysis of Manhattan Charter Schools

Finding Suitable Sites for Green Markets within FRESH zones in New York City

New York City Public Park Space and Physical Activity Venues and their Impact on Neighborhood Exercise Levels

Visualizing the Mental Health Distress and Distribution of ERs as compared to Mental Health Facilities in New York City 

Columbia University Military Veterans: Resource Availability in Metro NYC

Relationship between Percent Hispanic Population and race of New York City Council Representative

Sex Offender Residency Restrictions in Boston, MA

Maybe You Shouldn't Drink That Much: Relationship between NYC Bars and Public Urination Citations

Graffiti in New York City: Is the NYPD Equipped to Address the Problem?

Taxes and Tourism in Vermont

Bikes and Bills (Crashstat and Median Household Income)

Environmental Justice Case Study of Greater Los Angeles Area: The Correlation between Minority Populations, Median Household Income and Location of Dangerous Mining Sites

PlaNYC's Grow to Learn: Granting Access to Gardens?

An Industrial and Land Use Study for Allentown, PA

The Next Whole Foods: Site Spotting in New York City

A Spatial Analysis of Crime and Poverty: Chicago, IL

New York City Playgrounds and Schools: A Mapping and Assessment Project

Hurricane Evacuation Zones Reform

2013 Goals

I recently listened to something on NPR about Making Resolutions Stick. It's important to write them out and to make them attainable. Here were my goals for 2012. Below is a short list of them.

1. Become more proficient with Python, especially the other modules, iters, calendar, etc.
2. Learn GeoDjango, learn it.
3. Learn even more about the Google Maps API and Fusion tables.
4. Utilize Dropbox more for non-sensitive GIS data.

Did I do them. Well #1 and #4 are definite yes's. #3 is true for the first half of 2012. Teaching and work got in the way of continuing to work on that but what I was able to do met that initial goal. #2 I never got very far with. I should have started with just learning Django, which might be hard enough on its own.

GIS and Career Goals:

1. Blog more. One thing I didn't do much of in 2012 was blog. So I'd like to do more of that. Tweeting and other stuff just doesn't help me cement in things that I've learned as well as blogging about it.

2. Learn MapBox - CartoDB

3. Utilize SpiderOak. A lot of the sensitive data I work with can't be uploaded to Dropbox so I need to use SpiderOak to keep the data encrypted and secure. Dropbox is a good place to store my basemap data and non-sensitive documents but is not good for sensitive data or banking data.

4. Encrypt all my drives (desktop and mobile) - we have to as part of IRB and new IT regulations, plus its just the smart thing to do.

5. Finish the Codecademy Python track. I'm 1/3 done I think now (they keep adding ones). At one point I was 1/2 done. Better finish before they add more!

6. Learn Django. From there learn GeoDjango.

Guitar Goals:

1. Learn at least the intro and a few minutes of YEM. 2014 I'll learn the 2nd half.

2. Sand the dark finish off my homemade lap steel guitar.

3. Clean up and reorganize my effects pedalboard.