Final assignment: Poster presentation

For the final assignment class members will prepare a conference-quality poster showing their study area and two complementary analyses that they have conducted using spatial data. The focus of the poster is on showing the utility of these analyses, so the organization of the poster and presentation of data should reflect meaningful information gained from the analyses that you conducted.

A. Study area map

To orient the viewer and introduce the study area, the poster should include a relatively large format map of the study area (covering approximately 25% of the poster area) developed using the cartographic techniques acquired in this class. Please include an inset showing the location of this detail map in the context of the national boundaries. Also show your study area and the thematic information that reflects your research proposal in the Midterm.

B. Two Analyses

The point of this poster is to demonstrate analytical methods that you've developed in the context of GIS. You might use a raster-based approach for one and vector-based approach for the other, or combine them in some way. Many of these methods are complementary:

• predicting site locations, testing the results with with appropriate random sampling.
• evaluating size and location of archaeological sites through time against environmental or socio-political variables (other sites).
• evaluating agriculturally productive lands from satellite imagery and determining if streams are adjacentto river drainages.
• we will discuss other analyses in class. Consider the goals of your research in selecting analyses.

Please include 100 to 300 words of text (in a 18 point font minimally) explaining the analyses and the results of your findings.

You might have 2 or 4 small maps showing some progression or the separate layers that contribute to the analysis.

C. Poster Format

We will use the plotter in the GIS room in the lab. The posters should be D sized plots (24 x 36").

Remember that the materials are quite expensive. Even the blank paper costs quite a bit per roll. Thus, please don't waste materials and print a lot of drafts. Rather, we should prepare PDFs of our document drafts and look at them carefully in Acrobat. Try not to use more than one draft printout in the preparation of your final poster.

For the final we'll hang up the posters and talk about each one.

The poster is due during the scheduled final on Tues, Dec 12 at 3pm.
We will meet in HSSB 2018.