BALL STATE GIS DAY 2022
Student Story Map Competition and Departmental Showcase
WELCOME!
Welcome to our GIS 2022 showcase. You can browse through the Story Map by using the scroll button on the right hand of the screen, or use the links above to navigate directly to the chosen topic.
Embedded Story Maps and web pages are interactive, so be sure to click on them to explore all that's inside! Clicking on the button in the upper right hand corner of each embedded Story Map or web page will open them in a new tab.
Student Story Map Competition
The student Story Map competition was divided into three categories based on the number of creators: Story Maps created by an individual, Story Maps created by a small group (5 group members maximum) and Story Maps created by a class or large group. There were 6 entries in this year's competition.
Each category winner will receive gifts cards, a one-year license to ArcGIS Pro to use post graduation, and goodies from the department of History, ESRI and the University Libraries.
All of the entries can be found on the Ball State ArcGIS Online home page, https://bsumaps.maps.arcgis.com
Individual Creator Group Winner
Heroes in Life, Honored in Death by Samantha Sheperd.
Samantha is a senior undergraduate student in the Department of History. Her Story Map was created for HIST 240: Intro to Public History in Spring 2022, and analyzes the project to restore an African American Veteran's Cemetery and its place within the community it's located.
"Heroes in Life, Honored in Death"
Small Group Category Winner
The Narcotics Trade of Muncie by Griffin Hamilton and Samantha Kidder.
Griffin and Samantha are undergraduate students in the Department of History, and created this Story Map in the summer of 2022 for a Teacher - Scholar program as an analysis of narcotic's effects on American society at the turn on the nineteenth century.
The Narcotics Trade Of Muncie
Large Group Category Winner
Edinburgh Downtown Revitalization Project submitted by Dakshata Shahi
This Story Map was created in the Spring of 2022 by graduate students enrolled in the ARCH 607 Preservation Studio taught by JP Hall, and focuses on downtown Edinburgh, Indiana.
EDINBURGH DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION PROJECT
Department and Faculty Showcase
Applied Archeology Lab
The Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) is a highly productive institute within the College of Sciences and Humanities that executes external contracts and grants to help further Ball State University’s mission of being the model student-centered, community-engaged 21st-century public research university. Our motto in the AAL is “Learn. Work. Discover.” We realize this mission by conducting ground-breaking research while providing thousands of hours of hands-on entrepreneurial learning for our dozens of graduate and undergraduate employees. We regularly fund graduate assistantships for anthropology and archaeology students through our research grants, especially those interested in the material record of the Midwest.
With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Digital Humanities program, the Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) and the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA Lab) in partnership with the Ohio History Connection, and The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology have created the most accurate and complete map (see “VWHO Consensus” layers in the map) of the Newark Earthworks.
The Virtual World Heritage Ohio (Grant number: HAA-269032-20) project is creating accessible and engaging products to share the awesome scale, sophistication of the Indigenous architectural grandeur that are the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks ( http://worldheritageohio.org/hopewell-ceremonial-earthworks/ ) with the public and researchers, allowing engaging with these sites in a new, immersive way. Including accurate celestial data, using the NASA JPL Horizons database to rewind the sky to view the earthworks with the stars, moon, and sun in the positions the builders would have seen them in.
GIS by the Numbers
GIS is being used prolifically across campus. Over 740 BSU faculty, staff and students, from over 18 departments, have logged in to our ArcGIS Online account this calendar year.
On average, during an academic semester, nearly 100 BSU members log on to our ArcGIS Online account daily to create online maps or to license GIS software. ArcGIS Online users have created over 7,000 items this calendar year and we have spent over 15,000 hours using ArcGIS Pro!
All stats are from the 2022 calendar year
Department of Geography and Meteorology
Learn about student opportunities in GIScience within the Department of Geography and Meteorology. The department offers a major, minor, and certificate in GIScience. Students build a solid foundation and apply their skills through real-world projects. Visit bsu.edu/geog to learn more.
Adam Berland, Associate Professor of Geography, dissucsses Sustainability Stories
Field Station and Environmental Education Center
The Field Station and Environmental Education Center uses GIS daily to enhance the monitoring of invasive species, inventory trees on FSEEC properties, monitor tree canopy loss, and track and manage it's student workforce in the field.
The images below are selected from a larger presentation on using drone imagery to map canopy loss due to the Emerald Ash Borer in Ginn Woods given at the Indiana State GIS Conference in 2020.
For more information visit the FSEEC webpage at https://www.bsu.edu/academics/centersandinstitutes/fseec
History of Ginn Woods
The FSEEC, after an extension tree inventory project, was able to create several useful maps to show where we found ash trees, where we found clear evidence of EAB infestation, and how those trees fit into the overall context of canopy trees. Map on left shows all ash trees, with EAB infested trees in larger red circles. Map on right shows those infested trees surrounded by healthy ash (yellow) and other canopy species (green).
In September 2018 a DJI Phantom4 UAV was flown over Ginn Woods and recorded canopy cover during the growing season. In summer, with leaves still on the trees, it’s easy to see which trees are alive and which have died but are still standing.
Drone Deploy software combines individual images into a 3D model. We were able to visualize the existing canopy cover in great detail, and zoom in on areas of special interest.
The 3D model can be exported from Drone Deploy. Certain file types require paid subscription. We were able to export GeoTIFF files of the elevation model.
To test whether the tree map corresponded to our remote data, I needed to find an area with easily recognizable visual features in the photo. This gap in the center of the photo did not exist in 2012 when we measured the canopy trees. Either the tree map was wrong, or the gap formed after summer of 2012.
The UAV (drone) captures individual photos that are stitched together into the 3D model (DSM - digital surface model or DEM - digital elevation model). Photos are made of pixels of different color values. We can see in the photo that there are trees with leaves (shades of green to yellow), gaps between tree crowns (shadows of dark green to black), and dead tree branches (gray to white).
The UAV (drone) captures individual photos that are stitched together into the 3D model (DSM - digital surface model or DEM - digital elevation model). Photos are made of pixels of different color values. We can see in the photo that there are trees with leaves (shades of green to yellow), gaps between tree crowns (shadows of dark green to black), and dead tree branches (gray to white).
Using ERDAS Imagine software, we trained the computer to recognize pixels in the gray to white range that corresponded to dead tree branches. Those pixels were selected and coded with one color (blue) to represent the various shades encompassed in the original photo. We were then then able to extract only blue pixels and set all other values to black.
Drone Deploy software also has a feature called Plant Health. This false color image shows healthy vegetation (leaves) in green and dead plants (white) or ground in red. This area (right) was selected to show a mix of healthy and dead trees. The same extent is used for the following images.
On the left you see the photo corresponding to the plant health image of healthy and dead trees. On the right, we overlayed the shapefile derived from the Drone Deploy Plant Health image categorization process for dead branches. See how precisely the red pixels cover the dead branches in the photo. This auotmated process was applied to the entire 161 acre woods.
This image shows all the dead branches (yellow) across the Ginn Woods property (inside red line). Approximately 22 acres of the forest was composed of dead branches in the aerial imagery collected in September 2018. Future LIDAR and aerial imagery could help reveal which gaps are filling in and what species are replacing ash in the canopy.
University Libraries
GIS Resources in the University Libraries
THANK YOU!
A huge thanks to all of our faculty and staff who contributed content to our GIS Day showcase!
