Lab Log 3 (Lab 4)

So, our next lab (Lab 4) requires us to use ESRI’s Arc GIS Software to create three maps in order to become familiar with the software.

The first map I created was of the continental United States.

The map above shows countries with highest population with the darkest shade of blue, and the countries with the smallest population with the lighest shade of blue.

The map above is of Oregon and Washington State.

This map was created using the ESRI ArcGIS software as one of my maps for Lab 4. In this map I decided to include two layers (besides the county layer). The first layer I added is of major airports in the two states. The second layer is of Interstate Highways only in the two states.

Together, these two layers showed something interesting that I haven’t really noticed before. And that is, most major airports, such as Spokane International, Seattle, Protland, and Tri-City, are all along the Interstate Highways. This makes it easy for motorists to travel to and from the airports.

The larger airports are represented by a larger symbol (airplane).

In the map above, I decided to keep the Interstate Highway layer. But the other two layers add nicely to the interstate highway layer. One of the layers contains the major cities around the two states. At first the cities were broken into 5 classes based on population range. However, my intention was to see which and how many major cities are situated relatively close to the volcanoes in red (third layer), therefore, I combined the classes into just two. The cities with less than 177,000 are represented with a gray dot. Cities with more than 177,000 are represented with a large black dot.

With most major cities situated along the interstate highways and west of most volcanoes, if a volcanic eruption were to ever occur, most people (maybe) would safely and easily drive south on the interstate highways.