Summer 08 Class Final Projects: Highlights

Been working my fingers to the bone teaching 9 credits last Spring, 6 credits this Summer, and getting ready to teach 6 more this Fall (next week, gulp!).

This past Summer was exciting and really stood out, however, as many of the final projects from both courses were exceptionally great. I taught Seminar: Advanced GIS Topics for Real Estate Research and Understanding Geographic Information Systems (an intro to gis course).

Real Estate Project Highlights:

• Automated Foreclosure Selection Model. This project incorporated MLS and foreclosure listings and conducted a failry sophisticated comparable market analysis to whittle down the hundreds of available foreclosure listings to a select few worthy of consideration and further investigating. The analysis would have been sufficient for an excellent grade, but they went the extra mile and automated the process with a custom toolbar, geoprocessing models, and some VBA programming.
• Site Selection (suitability analysis) for a New Mixed-Use Development in Arlington Texas. Of note here is the clever way they included traffic pattern data in their analysis.
• Analyzing the Correlation Between Crime and Property Values. What set the project apart was the student's in depth use of SPSS and linear statistical analysis in conjunction with ArcGIS.

Understanding GIS Project Highlights

• Estimating Surface Runoff Volume. Wow is all I can say about this one. This project used ArcGIS to calculate the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number for a local area in Fort Worth. Landuse, zoning, aerial images, and city-defined drainage areas were used in this analysis.
• Site Selection for an Environmentally Friendly Park in Dallas. Completed by a graduate Landscape Architecture student, this project focused on soil runoff, amount of sunlight, and various other parameters necessary to create a Green park.
• Analyze the Relationship Between Geology and Oil Fields in Texas. This project made extensive use of the Geologic Atlas of Texas to search for common geologic types underlyiing oil fields. This in itself was a great project, but the student went the extra mile and created a Google Maps web page showcasing the results, which was fantastic.

Like I said, this was a most excellent summer in terms of the quality of student final projects. There were of course many other great projects, but these are the six that stick the most in my head at the moment. ;)