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GEOGRAPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI (GEOG 101/ANTH 104)
EXERCISE 2—GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Using a geographic information system (GIS) is one of the best ways to appreciate how the
development of information technology has revolutionized our ability to understand and
visualize spatial relationships and to use this knowledge to tackle fundamental problems. GIS are
awesome tools of geographic enquiry and exploration and they often provide the information and
context to understand and address our most pressing concerns.
Please use the resources in the Topic 2 folder on Blackboard to learn more about GIS, their
purpose and their structure and organization. Understand how GIS provide ways of organizing
information and examining relationships so that you can appreciate cause and effect relationships
and go from information to knowledge.
As with all projects that rely on web-based resources, the links provided below may sometimes
not work or may not take you directly to the specified resource because of recent changes made
to the site. If the link does not work, copy and paste it into your browser and try again, or try a
different browser. Chrome often works better than Safari, especially if the page has animations
or other dynamic capabilities (as do most online GIS). If the link takes you to an organization’s
homepage instead of the specified resource, then look around on the page for a link to what you
want. It has probably been moved. If all else fails, do a web search for the resource using the
most helpful words or phrases. You may find that the resources has been moved to a different
site. Rarely do the resources that we use disappear completely, so one or more of these strategies
should help you. Also, web resources are updated and redesigned so that specific issues or data
sets that I ask you to examine may not be available or may have been changed. During the
semester, this does not happen very often but it is possible. This is not a problem. Use what is
available on the page to explore the larger problem or set of issues that the exercise addresses.
INSTRUCTIONS
There are two parts to this exercise (both parts are required). In the first part, you have the
opportunity to engage with the prevalence of hunger in the United States by exploring spatial
patterns and relationships that reflect and often reinforce them. You may be startled by the
results. In the second part, you choose to use GIS to learn about other another issue in the US or
across the globe.
Part 1—Hunger in the United States
Did you know that 1 in 8 Americans and 1 in 6 American children goes hungry
(https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-hunger-us)? We are the largest economy
on earth with the third largest population and a highly productive and diligent workforce, but we
have one of the most unequal wealth distributions and highest rate of poverty in the rich
“developed” world and we fail to care for our less fortunate
(https://www.worldhunger.org/hunger-in-america-united-states-hunger-poverty-facts-2018).
Every American should be aware of this problem but our mainstream media often ignore it in
order to project misunderstandings of American exceptionalism and global power.
© Matthew Leigh Murray
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Now, use a GIS to explore food insecurity and its connection to many other issues in the United
States. Go to the “Map the Meal Gap” online GIS (http://map.feedingamerica.org). If the hotlink
does not work properly, copy the site address into your browser. If the map location has been
moved, look for a link to it on the main page. This map is hosted by “Feeding America,” an
organization that calls attention to hunger and related socio-economic disparities in the US. On
your screen, you see a map of the US showing data about food insecurity.
• Play with the different view options on the map and learn how to change the scale of the
map and the kinds of information displayed. You can also choose between different years
of data. Explore the various links on the main page as well as at the Hunger Research tab
at the bottom of the page.
• As you mouse over the US map, you will see a pop-up window with a wealth of
information about food insecurity for each state.
• Choose one state to explore in more detail and click on it. The map will change to a more
detailed scale of your chosen state, showing the individual counties. You can now
explore the differences between the counties in your chosen state, as you did for the
entire US.
In Part 1 of your exercise report, please respond to the following questions:
1. What is “food insecurity?”
2. What did you observe about the general spatial patterns of food insecurity in the United
States on the main map? Do particular parts of the United States have more food
insecurity than other part? What do you think about this?
3. What state did you choose to examine? Why did you choose this state?
4. What patterns did you detect in the “overall” and “child” food insecurity rates in the
state? Are there differences and/or similarities?
5. In what way did the spatial patterns of food insecurity change in your state through time?
What might these changes suggest in terms of food insecurity in your state? What do you
think about this?
Part 2—ESRI “Story Maps”
The American mapping technology giant, ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) in
Redlands, CA, maintains a fascinating and dynamic site that hosts dozens of interactive online
GIS called “story maps” because of the way that each GIS helps us to understand geographic
relationships and to appreciate the importance of these relationships in our lives.
Go to the ESRI Story Maps site:
https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-storymaps/stories) and choose at least one
“story map” to explore. Look around the site for links to more maps and map themes.
In Part 2 of your report, respond to the following prompts about your chosen story map:
1. What is the name of the map and who made it? What is the purpose of the map (that is,
what is the “story”)? Why did you choose it?
2. What kinds of information are combined in the GIS to tell this story?
3. What did you learn from this GIS and what do you think about that information?