Back to School

Here we are sitting in an office with our heads stuck in the computer for the past 4 weeks learning GIS in order to produce maps.  For those of you who know us, this is not our ideal setting... we would much rather be outside doing things.  From the 18th to the 29th, 11 days, we have put in 208 hours!!!  

We have been doing the work on the computer.  This is the written example of what it looks like.  There is a total of 8 modules to go through with a test at the end of each module.  Our first test after module 1, we missed 2 out of 10 questions, meaning we passed, but Bea wanted us to take it again until we got all 10 correct.  Okey, dokey....

We did it...

Bea is very patient with words of encouragement.  I have threatened to pull out and let Wallace go it alone, but it is very interesting.  Bea tells us this is a valuable tool that is in high demand by several entities and she is willing and very able to teach us.  We are struggling, but giving it our best effort.

Seeing the results of our first map, with lots of help, then scanning every page to OCR (optical character recognition) for use by future trainees...

Another tedious but necessary task...all the while learning how to do more tasks.

If you want to learn GIS, come to Wichita Mountains NWR and Bea will teach you all about it.

Until next time...