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Week 2 Activity — State Boundary Data Model

Lecture · Day 2 · Tuesday of Week 2 — GIS Data Models

Graded in-class activity. Polygon data model activity: encode a state boundary using only numbers. Record your completion on Learning Suite.

In the GIS Data Models deck, "Polygon Data Model Activity."

Setup. Blank paper. Optionally a stack of printed state outlines with no names, one per pair.

Run.

  1. Each pair picks a state (or is handed one). Their job: represent the state using only numbers. No letters, symbols, or colors.
  2. Five minutes. Most pairs invent a vertex list in some coordinate system they made up; some draw a grid and fill cells; a few triangulate. Those are vector, raster, and TIN, and they just reinvented them.
  3. Pairs trade papers with a neighboring pair who does not know the state and try to identify it from the numbers alone.
  4. Ask which model each pair used, and what they had to agree on for the trade to work (the origin, the units, the order of the numbers). That is a coordinate system, and it is Week 8's topic.

Learning Suite. Students record the state they encoded and whether the other pair identified it, on In Class Activity: State Boundary Vector Data Model Activity.