Assignment 3
MILLERSVILLE UNIVERSITY
Geography Department
Map Interpretation & Analysis Assignment 3 Due:
GEOG 281
In the D2L Content area for this course, under the Assignment 3 section (where you found this document), find the link titled “Assignment 3 Map Links” and open it. The page you are taken to contains separate links for Parts A and B of this assignment.
Part A: Introducing GIS using Lancaster County GIS Data
Your course content pages illustrate how to navigate the map. In particular you should practice zooming in and out, “panning,” displaying the map layer legends, turning map layers off and on, “identifying” particular map elements (the most important for this assignment are the “institutions of higher education”), and measuring distances (this works much like the toolbar used earlier in the course on the topographic map .PDFs).
The key data layers are recorded for “census tracts,” which are geographical areas smaller than a township, city or borough, used by the US Census Bureau to report detailed geographical results (they publish data for smaller subdivisions of the census tracts, too).
Answer the following questions:
1. Which institution of higher education is closest to MU’s main campus? How far away is it in miles? (Note: do not eliminate any of the candidates for any reason other than distance.)
Millersville University down town campus - 3.787 miles
To answer questions 2 – 4, use the census tracts layer depicting Population Density; it has a yellow-to-red color scheme (sparse to dense population, in people per square mile). To see it clearly, turn off the other two census tracts layers (Median Household Income and Median Age) and the UGB-VGB layer.
2. List the names and annual tuition for the institutions located in the census tracts with a population density greater than 10,000 people per square mile.
Stevens College of technology- 6800$
Millersville Downtown – 8400$
Lancaster Theological seminary – 12600$
Franklin and marshal 42600$
Geography Department
Map Interpretation & Analysis Assignment 3 Due:
GEOG 281
In the D2L Content area for this course, under the Assignment 3 section (where you found this document), find the link titled “Assignment 3 Map Links” and open it. The page you are taken to contains separate links for Parts A and B of this assignment.
Part A: Introducing GIS using Lancaster County GIS Data
Your course content pages illustrate how to navigate the map. In particular you should practice zooming in and out, “panning,” displaying the map layer legends, turning map layers off and on, “identifying” particular map elements (the most important for this assignment are the “institutions of higher education”), and measuring distances (this works much like the toolbar used earlier in the course on the topographic map .PDFs).
The key data layers are recorded for “census tracts,” which are geographical areas smaller than a township, city or borough, used by the US Census Bureau to report detailed geographical results (they publish data for smaller subdivisions of the census tracts, too).
Answer the following questions:
1. Which institution of higher education is closest to MU’s main campus? How far away is it in miles? (Note: do not eliminate any of the candidates for any reason other than distance.)
Millersville University down town campus - 3.787 miles
To answer questions 2 – 4, use the census tracts layer depicting Population Density; it has a yellow-to-red color scheme (sparse to dense population, in people per square mile). To see it clearly, turn off the other two census tracts layers (Median Household Income and Median Age) and the UGB-VGB layer.
2. List the names and annual tuition for the institutions located in the census tracts with a population density greater than 10,000 people per square mile.
Stevens College of technology- 6800$
Millersville Downtown – 8400$
Lancaster Theological seminary – 12600$
Franklin and marshal 42600$