Impervious Surfaces in Snohomish County, Washington

LU_Kerry.zip

Resources from this project
Archived resources from this project

Learning Unit Description:

The Integrated Geospatial Education and Technology Training Project (iGETT) presents a series of Learning Units (LU) designed to incorporate federal land remote sensing data into Geographic Information System (GIS) instruction. The A Beginning Assessment Comparing Impervious Surfaces in Snohomish County, Washington LU, created by Kerry Lyste of Everett Community College, uses real-world data from Snohomish County in Washington State related to the dramatic increase of impervious surfaces, and the impact it has on the acceleration of the flood peak curve, to download, manipulate, and display geographic data and satellite imagery. Split into five parts, the lesson guides students through the initial downloading of data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the processing and analysis of said data, and the final mapping of analyzed data.

The iGETT Learning Units amount to about two weeks of instruction and are designed for use both as “skills-based case studies and building blocks for new courses.” All LUs are intended for students with a basic understanding of GIS. Each LU includes three core documents, an instructor’s guide, a student guide, and a curriculum support document, as well as the remote sensing data needed to complete the unit. This lesson takes, at minimum, two weeks to complete, due to the nature of handling large data files. Some of the work may be completed outside of the classroom, but most is intended to be completed in the presence of a teacher. In order to complete the lesson, students should already have advanced Microsoft Office skills, intermediate GIS skills (specifically using ESRI products), and basic to intermediate knowledge of ENVI or Image Analysis skills.

Upon completion of the lesson, students will have demonstrated skills in downloading Landsat data; understanding what bandwidths are; preforming unsupervised classification of Landsat data; exporting data between ENVI and ArcGIS; using remote sensing to identify impervious surfaces and impacts on urban areas; answering questions (including maps) on outcomes of the analysis; and working in teams to assess the impact of impervious surfaces on stream side habitat.

For orientation purposes, viewers should begin with ImperviousSurfaces_Lyste_Slide.pdf, which offers a description of the LU as well as an overview of topics covered, required software, and the intended audience.

Lesson Contents:

The attached files associated with this LU exist in a variety of formats and a variety of geospatial data file types.

Below is a list of the files contained within the .zip attachment. The size of each file is included in parenthesis.

LU_Kerry.zip:

Documents:
- Lesson Overview (ImperviousSurfaces_Lyste_Slide.pdf 574 KB)
- Instructor Guide (Impervious_Lyste_IG.pdf 146 KB)
- Student Guide (Impervious_Lyste_SG.pdf 2.7 MB)
- Curriculum Support Document (Impervious_Lyste_CS.pdf 75 KB)
- Presentation Slides (HowLandsatMade.pdf 2.8 MB)
- Supporting Article (OSU support doc on Impervious Surfaces.pdf 467 KB)
- ENVI Tutorial: Classification Methods (Classification_Methods.pdf 513 KB)
- Beginning Assessment, Key to Student Questions (KeytoStudentQuestions.pdf 74 KB)
Data:
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    - (all_classes.shp 231KB)
    - (all_classes.shx 8KB)
    - (all_classes.evf 228KB)
    - (unsuper1975.prj 416 bytes)
    - (impervious1975.dbf 9KB)
    - (impervious1975.evf 12KB)
    - (unsuper1975 48KB)
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- 2002data.zip
  - 1975data
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    - (impervious2002.shp 122KB)
    - (impervious2002.shx 2KB)
    - (all_area.dbf 166KB)
    - (all_area.sbn 9KB)
    - (all_area.sbx 444 bytes)
    - (all_area.shp 418KB)
    - (all_area.shx 8KB)
    - (all_area.shp.xml 9KB)
    - (all_area.prj 403 bytes)
    - (all_classes02.dbf 165KB)
    - (all_classes02.prj 391 bytes)
    - (all_classes02.shp 396KB)
    - (all_classes02.shx 8KB)
    - (all_classes02.evf 363KB)
    - (impervious2002.prj 391 bytes)
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    - (unsuper2002.hdr 884 bytes)
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