Week 5 - Georeferencing & Projections Part 1

Week 5 was the first half of a two week lesson about georeferencing and projections. Datums, ellipsoids, geographic coordinate systems, projection coordinate systems, and bears! Oh my! Ok, no bears, just maps, but understanding projections can be a bit "of a bear." I have read a little about projections before in my previous Intro to GIS course, so the concepts definitely sank in a more this time. Or are starting to at least!

For our lab assignment, we used three data frames with three different projected coordinate systems to compare the differences in area (sq miles) of four FL counties. We had to ensure that the scale was the same between each data frame for the scale bar to be accurate as well as build a table of some kind to highlight the differences in area for the counties. I picked a simple color scheme, set the scale the same between each data frame, and built my legend into my comparison table to reduce redundancy. As I was able to walk step by step through the lab in terms of using the Project tool and redefining coordinate systems, it didn't seem too bad. I am sure it will be trickier as we progress to choosing and defining map projections on our own.

Map comparing three different projection coordinate systems and resulting differences in county areas.