We present our project in one week. After all the work that has been put in throughout the semester i thought that we would be finished by now. Looking back i did not think that this class would have required so much work, but now that we’re at the end it has all caught up to us. I think we’ve done a pretty good job staying on top of our work. Starting off in two teams then coming back together as one as we get ready to present. I’ve really enjoyed this class and this project because it has given me a chance to learn a lot of new things. I had never really spent much time downtown and now i know all about the cultural trail. Also i’ve never what GIS was and now i have a good idea how to work it. My part of the paper is the environmental section and I’m definitely not an environmental person. Yet, i have learned so much about the benefits of trees and how much it is to take care of them and manage them. I cannot believe the semester is over.
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It is the last full of week of classes and our presentation is almost just a week away! I can not believe it is already time for finals and that this class is almost over. Our report is coming together very nicely. While my classmates have been doing tons of writing and finishing up their sections of the report, Mary and I have been doing all GIS map making. GIS is really awesome and there is an endless amount of possibilities to the maps we can make! Marjorie has been showing Mary and I all the capabilities that the program of GIS has to offer. I am really thankful to have gotten to use GIS because over the summer I am going to be interning with my dad’s company working completely with GIS. GIS has already opened up opportunities for me and I am excited to work with it more this summer. It is such a useful tool to be able to work with and once you get the hang of it, it is not that hard to understand! Making the actual GIS maps is the easiest part. The hardest part of the whole process is deciding what colors and symbology to use to make the map look just right for the presentation. I am excited for our presentation because it will be very rewarding to stand in front of a group of people and put on display all the hard work that our class has been doing this past semester. I am also very nervous because this is the first time I will be presenting to a group of people other than just classmates or professors! This class has taught me so much and given me the chance to work with so many people and learn so much about the Cultural Trail and downtown Indianapolis. I am thankful to have had the chance to be in this particular Environmental Practicum class and I hope everyone had as good of an experience as me!
At the beginning of the semester I went through and wrote down all of my blog due dates in my planner. The fact that this is my last one is exciting, yet very intimidating. With this class and all of my others kicking into high gear, I feel as though I will never be prepared for the five final exams that I have in the near future. However, I know that everything will work out; it always does. It just so happens that sometimes it’s with a little less sleep than preferred.
For this class in particular I have been focusing on the social aspect. Throughout the semester I’ve been focused on working with the people and collecting surveys, and now it’s time for me to put all of this information together and figure out the importance of the results we have. So far, I’ve spent a lot of my time on creating graphs and excel sheets so that the results were easy to visualize. Also, with comparing them to Chuck’s graphs, I can see how different the two sections of the trail really are. With having all of this complete, my main focus now is to analyze the impact that the results of our studies have had. At this point, my analysis feels slightly redundant, so I am hoping to find a way to express the results in a more interesting way.
This semester has by far been the quickest one yet. It seems like just yesterday that I was cluelessly posting my first blog. I was clueless about the class, and about blogging in general. However, I now feel that I have made great advancements in my knowledge of both aspects, and as a whole it has been my pleasure to be able to work with everyone in this class. I hope that everyone has a great summer, and wish all of the graduating seniors luck 
With less than two weeks until the presentation, our focus has been on writing the paper.
The economics section is looking good and is ready for peer revision by our team leaders. Basically the economics section includes an overview of studies about the economic effects of constructing trails. Case studies provide a theoretical approach to examining economic benefits. This is followed by our methodology section where we discuss how we conducted business interviews along the trail. We summarize the results from the business interviews and follow it up with economic benefits from tree calculations. Recommendations are also provided. Basically we recommend a stronger social media presence for the ICT and possibly developing business partnerships with companies along the trail. Businesses and the ICT have several of the same goals to increase use and safety which increases accessibility. Increasing accessibility, holding all else the same, increases clientele and thus profit.
Just in passing, I was listening to the radio for a commercial for Coal Pizza Co, the place we interviewed on Washington Street and their advertisement forgot to mention they were located along the ICT! Perhaps in the future these businesses will find the ICT is an attraction to be proud of and they’ll mention that their business is located on it.
Don’t let the title deceive you, we still have plenty of more to go before we are able to put a bow on this project, but we are making steady progress. We have divided the groups again into twos. Demitrius and I are organizing the groups now and are responsible for the introduction and conclusion to the report. One Chuck and Becky are tackling the social section, Rich and Andrew are working on the economic section, Jordan and Olivia are handling the environmental section, while Molly and Mary on turning all our data into maps and graphs.
We submitted our first draft of our report yesterday. We are still analyzing the data we have and completing that portion of the report, but it seems like the biggest thing we are going to have to do is editing. It takes a lot of work to ensure that everything from all the different groups contributing to the project fits together cleanly. While we still have a ways to go, it is nice to see all the work we have put into this coming together at last. I can imagine how nice it will be to hand off our findings to Indianapolis Trail Inc. at the end. Although I am not looking forward to an 8am presentation on a Saturday.
Yes I did indeed.
Currently running on approximately less than 7 hours of sleep in the last two nights as well as approximately more than 5 pots of coffee in the last two nights, I find myself with one last short task before the beginning of the weekend. The smooth, sweet crooning of DMX reach my ears as I just dropped a bow on the last two pages of my term paper in conservation biology. When reviewing the requirements, it seemed that I had forgotten to include my own opinions in regards to conservation ethics, of which I had just written ten pages. Fortunately, I can take a step back tonight and relax.
In regards to our little project going on in practicum, I am still a little behind. I should have the time to contact some Alabama St. business owners and managers in the next few days and the majority of my economic section will be complete. Needless to say, we still have hours of report editing and presentation prep before it is ready, but I have some confidence in the teamwork we have shown thus far. We are making the final push in the class (some, including me, are making the final push in college) and will hopefully be able to present a useful report detailing the social, economic, and environmental benefits of the ICT as well as a providing some useful advice and a positive outlook for the project overall. Go team go.
Well with only sixteen days left until our presentation we have stepped things into high gear. After completing data collection for both Washington and Alabama streets we next divided into groups focusing on either social, ecological, or economic aspects of the trail. I have been working on ecological and environmental benefits associated with the trail. Not only are there benefits associated with the trail such as CSOs to collect some of the excess water, but other features such as the multitude of benefits created through the use of trees. With the dbh, type of tree, and location where the tree is placed we are able to calculate the overall yearly benefit for each tree and at each point in its life. Using its data today we plan to graph the overall benefit over time as the tree grows, creating several helpful visual aids. Also calculated is the amount that it will cost to keep the tree maintained. Through comparisons of benefits produced to the cost to maintain the tree we will also determine the correct time for the tree to be replaced. Ultimately, if the tree costs more to maintain than the amount of benefits it provides then it should therefore be eliminated. So with more research to do and the clock ticking fast this is good bye for me.
I can’t believe that school is almost over and our report is due in about two weeks! It seems like just yesterday that Karen came and talked to us about the Cultural Trail. Now our class is focusing on getting this project put together and finishing everything up! It is insane how quickly time flies. I am very excited that my part of the final report consists mostly in making GIS maps. I have blogged about GIS before but honestly this technology is so amazing that the topics concerning it are endless.
Every time I use this software I find out new possibilities that it can be used for. The first map Molly and I created was a context map about the project. It shows where the Cultural Trail is located in Indianapolis and some important landmarks around it. On Thursday we will be working on maps that use raster analysis. These maps are so awesome because they can analyze so many things. We can input all the bikeways, greenways, and bus stops in Indianapolis to see how accessible the Trail is to people all over the city. I can’t believe how the GIS system can compute all of this information! This is going to be important because it will be able to show what people in the city do not have easy access to the Trail. This could help Indianapolis Cultural Inc. to maybe focus on these problem areas in making the Trail more accessible.
We are also going to keep researching other ways to use GIS to analyze walkability and accessibility. I have a lot of fun making maps and can’t wait to make some more on Thursday!
Its hard to believe that there are just 4 weeks of college left before I graduate. This final semster has presented some unique challenges in and out of the classroom. In particular, this free form class has allowed us all the opportunity fo truly design our project from the ground up. But far from the freedom of designing an independent project, this class forces us to take our different ideas and forge a project as a group. Assuming the role of a group leader, or wrangler, as I prefer to be known, has been an experiment in coordination.
As a newborn deer struggles to position its quivering legs underneath its body, I am working to glean the support and cooperation of the rest of the group so that we can work together as a full grown bambi to produce an equally touching product in the end. Working with this class is a true pleasure, despite the growing pains of accepting that we really do have a large paper to write. It is so helpful to be able to delegate jobs and know that they will get done. The way that this class has come together over the Cultural Trail is just fantastic.
There is nothing like a group project to bring out a person’s true personality, and I think our class is lucky to have good leaders and hard workers. I truly hope that our final product can flow together with ease and will end up benefiting the ICT Inc. and Indianapolis as a whole.
We have completely organized our project and are finally about to venture out onto the cultrual trail on our own. after lots of prep work figuring out what we wanted to find out, how we were going to do it and splitting up the different sections. We are really focusing on the tripple bottom line for this project with the social, enviernmental and economical factors. I am most excited for the social part. It will be really interesting to see who uses the trail and why, also to see if they travel alone, in groups, or with pets or kids. I am also interested to see how many people will actually take the time to take the surveys we have made verses taking it home. Also to see if the people who chose to take it home will actually do it. I hope we recieve all of the data that we need. I believe finding out the econimical data and enviernmental will we more time consuming but more accurate. I’m very excited to get started on this project outside of the classroom.
