lab #4

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  The ArcGIS tutorial was very long yet very rewarding. I was very happy to have been able to learn it, but I wish I had enough time to finish it during lab hours. The maps created are very pretty and informational. Hopefully, this is just the beginning to my knowledge of GIS. The only problem I had was with the arterials_new. For some reason, I couldn't get it to show up on the target drop-down menu. I had to make a note to myself and leave it alone. After 24 hours I was able to come back to the lab and successfully fix the problem. (I had to make sure the arterials_new in the table of contents was working properly).
  This mini victory gave me more confidence in the ArcGIS program. I want to learn more, but there is so much. I feel as though I need to go through the tutorial, and other tutorials more than three times in order to fully understand it. I guess the best thing to do is to move forward and I will figure it out along the way.
  The maps on display are of an airport noise contour, the schools around it, the population density and the land use in the area. It made it very clear to me that GIS is very important in how we legislate development going forward, and calculate the effect of new plans that could potentially hurt a community.