Lowell Telecommunications Corporation

Community Mapping Class
Simple tools & techniques for exploring your community
March 2, 9, 16, 17

Teacher: Ben Sheldon

Summary: Ask anyone what maps they use, and they will most likely mention road maps. Maps help us understand the world around us but creating them usually requires complicated tools and information that could only be acquired at great cost--meaning that most maps could only serve broad or profitable purposes.

Recently tools and information have become available that allows individuals or organizations to easily and inexpensively explore and map their surroundings. This allows maps to be created by everyday people and because of that, reflect their own needs or expression.

Terms & Definitions:
Cartography: The fancy name for maps and mapmaking.
Geodetic: Information having to do with the Earth. In most cases, this will mean Latitude (horizontal) and Longitude (vertical) and maybe altitude as well.
Scale: The size of the map in relation to the real world. Most often displayed in terms of a ratio. For example, 1:24,000 means that one inch (or any distance) on the map corresponds to 24,000 inches in the real world. A larger scale means a more detailed map, but a smaller ratio: 1:3,000 is a larger scale than 1:24,000.
GPS (Global Position System): A series of satellites operated by the US government that, with a receiver can relatively accurately pinpoint ones position anywhere on the planet. GPS receivers can be relatively inexpensive with simple ones running less than $100.

Examples:
Urban Ecology Institute's Urban Forest Program
(see [http://ltc.org/files/SE-Tree Health.pdf] for example)
For the past two years the Urban Ecology Institute, in partnership with the Boston Parks Department has been identifying and mapping street trees in Boston.
- Used expensive software (ArcGIS by ESRI) and hand-held computers.
- Identified location by surroundings (in this situation more accurate than GPS)
- Involved large number of relatively inexperienced volunteers

East Somerville Community Mapping Project
[http://island94.org/node/22]
Last summer several community organizations came together to work with local community members to create personal maps (memory maps) and community maps of important or interesting objects, services and resources such as mailboxes, nonprofits, potholes, abandoned lots, etc.
- Low-tech, used posterboard, markers, photographs, clippings and string
- Attracted a diverse group of residents and nonprofit organizations
- Two separate goals: 1) identify community needs 2) present community history and diversity
- Proudly displayed in Somerville Central Library
- To be used in future community planning

My Blog
[http://island94.org]
Last fall, in a prolonged period of boredom I hacked together an implementation of GoogleMaps in order to display my posts in an alternate and unique manner--geographically.
- Uses a freely available service through the magic of the internet
- Maps information I personally created
- Requires Drupal as blogging software

Hands on

Google Earth
Download for Mac or Windows [http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html]
Google Earth is a relatively simple to use but relatively powerful program or viewing of mainly aerial photography, but also additional data, with both simple ways of mapping information, and complex. Just playing around with it for no purpose can be fun as well.

Features
- Eye candy galore
- Easily search addresses and locations
- Easily import external data (.kml, .kmz files)

Additional links for external data
[http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/categories.php/Cat/]
[http://www.philb.com/googleearth.htm]