Applied Geography Conference AGX 2023

Snails in Need of GIS: Using Historical Data to Map Land Snails in the US Part 1

Oct 28, 2023, 9:50 AM

1h 10m

Carnegie/1-1 - AGX Workshop Room (Carnegie Museum of Natural History)

Workshop AGX Special Sessions Workshop

Speakers

Dr Josh Cannon (David C. Fredrick Honors College, University of Pittsburgh)Dr Susan Lucas (Urban Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh)Dr Tim Pearce (Carnegie Museum of Natural History)

Description

This I start 1 of a 3-hour workshop (offered in three parts) will introduce attendees to several unusual and unique geocoded historical data resources on land snails held at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and other museums across the United States. The workshop will be led by Tim Pearce (Assistant Curator of Mollusks at Carnegie Museum of Natural History), Susan Lucas (faculty member in the Urban Studies program) and Josh Cannon (Scholar-Mentor, Office of National Scholarships, David C. Fredrick Honors College, University of Pittsburgh).

Participants should have some GIS expertise. A basic knowledge of Excel will be helpful but is not required. Depending on their level of expertise and comfort, participants will work with either cleaned, ready to map or uncleaned/ uncorrected data. Participants should bring their own laptop computers.

Students experienced in GIS will be on hand to help participants.

In the first part of the workshop participants will learn basic land snail biology, discuss problems with the data including use of inconsistent terminology, inaccurate georeferencing and search effort.