FREC/GEOG 667: GIS Technical Consultant

Dr. John Mackenzie Dept. of Food & Resource Economics 215 Townsend Hall  Newark, DE 19716  voice: 302.831.1312  fax: 302.831.6243 email: johnmack@udel.edu

Dr. Tracy Deliberty Department of Geography 229 Pearson Hall  Newark, DE 19711  voice: 302.831.4084  fax: 302.831.6654  email: tracyd@udel.edu

Class meets most Wednesdays 1:15--2:00 PM in the Geography Dept. conference room (the Mather Room, located in dept. admin. suite)

Course Summary:

This semester's GIS tech consultants will work with student project teams in FREC 480 "GIS in Natural Resource Management" or (by arrangement with Tom McKenna) GEOG 372 "Geographic Information Systems."

• FREC 480: Tuesdays & Thursdays; early lab 3-3:30 PM; lecture 3:30-4:45 PM; late lab 4:45-5:30 PM in Townsend GIS/CAD lab.
• GEOG 372: Wednesdays; 6-9 PM in Pearson 203.

• attendance at the supported introductory class (10%)
• completion of introductory class projects (40%)
• design and seminar presentation of new class project (50%)

1. Election campaign -- Geocode registered voters (e.g. 10,000+ voters in DE 23rd Representative District) using TIGER roads or DELDOT road centerline data to develop candidate walking sheets; quantify support by neighborhood and polling district; plan optimal campaign sign placement.  Teams may support either candidate in a contested election.  (Viability of this project is limited by address range errors in TIGER data, direction errors in road centerline data.)
2. School redistricting -- The lifting of the Federal Court desegregation order for the Christina, Brandywine, Red Clay and Colonial school districts in northern Delaware, combined with recent "neighborhood schools" legislation, means Delaware will be re-drawing school district boundaries and school feeder patterns based on 2000 Census data.  The objective of this project is use 1990 Census data to prototype new districts and feeder patterns that will comply with the neighborhood schools legislative directive while maintaining satisfactory racial/ethnic balance in the public schools.
3. GPS-based mapping of Rittenhouse Park -- The City of Newark Dept. of Parks & Recreation needs a trail map of Rittenhouse Park (accessed from Old Chestnut Hill Rd.).  Students will use GPS receivers to map park trails, combine these data with digital elevation, orthophoto and other data layers.