Assignment 1

 

Part 1:

    After my calculations between Eau Claire Memorial and Eau Claire North's test score I found out that ECN's teachers shouldn't be concerned about not having the highest test scores. ECM's mean was: 160.9, median: 164.5, mode: 170, range: 83, and standard deviation was: 23.6. Likewise, ECN's mean was: 158.5, median: 159.5, mode: 120, range: 91, and standard deviation was: 27.1.

    As you can see based on the mean that both schools are relatively close to each other, only two points off. ECN's median is slightly lower but this can be skewed by lower test scores. The mode doesn't really play a factor, while neither does the range. Standard deviation is what I really am interested in. With ECN's standard deviation being higher, this makes up for not having the very top test scores.

Part 2:

    The second part to this assignment dealt with using excel spreadsheets and arcmap to investigate organic farms and goat farms in Wisconsin. My job was to use quantative methods and spatial reasoning to determine a place to establish a farm. I was given the number of organic and goat farms per county in Wisconsin. With statistical calculations I was able to draw some conclusions on where a farm could be likely placed to thrive and benefit the surrounding area in Wisconsin.

    To start I began by opening the information of the organic and goat farms per county in excel. I then wanted to calculate the mean, median, mode, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis.  I didn't have much knowledge of using Microsoft excel, but the directions and a little problem solving allowed me to calculate these equations rather quickly in excel.

 

In columns E2-E8 I calculated the mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation, etc.. I did the same for the numbers throughout the F column. These numbers would play a large part in making the four other maps for this assignment.

    I was asked to make five maps that would support my findings and the data that I used. The first map was a simple map of the number of organic farms per county in Wisconsin. This map was simple as all the data was give to me already. My second map I was asked to create a map of the percentage of all organic farms for the state for each county. To do this I had to add the sum of all the organic farms in each county throughout the state. This gave me 1180 total organic farms. To find the percent, I had to take the total number of organic farms in each county divided by the total number of organic farms in the state (1180) and multiplied that by 100. My equation looked like this for Adams county in excel. =c1/1180*100. this gave me the percent of 0.084% of total organic farms in the state lay in Adams county. I computed this for the rest of the counties.

    For my third map I was asked to find the difference between mean and actual number of organic farms. This was an easy equation to figure out, I took the number of organic farms in each county and subtracted this by the average number of organic farms per county in the state. For Adams county I took the one organic farm and subtracted it from 16.38889 or the average of organic farms. My equation in excel looked like this: =c2-e$2. This gave me a differential average of -15.3889. With the money sign behind the "e" in my equation, that made it the constant. my excel spreadsheet now looked like this:

      My fourth map I was asked to find the percentage of goat farms for the state for each county. Since I already calculated the percentage of organic farms per county I already knew what I had to do to calculate this equation. I took the number of goat farms in each county and divided that by the total number of goat farms in Wisconsin (2419) and multiplied that by 100. My equation in excel looked like this for Adams county: =d2/2419*100. This gave me roughly .49 percent of goat farms in Wisconsin lay within Adams county. My final spread sheet with all the calculation looked like this:

    For my fifth and final map I was asked to find the standard deviations of goat farms. With all the information that I already had, I was able to compute this in ArcMap. When I created this map I went under the symbology tab in the layer properties of the map. My value was goats, then I went under the classify tab and changed it to standard deviation. This allowed me to make changes to any numbers I wanted while it computed it for me as well.

    After I had completed all my calculations, I now had to create my maps in ArcMap. Since I had classes in GIS before I was familiar with the processes that I had to take to be able to create these maps. After bringing in a county map of Wisconsin and joining my excel table, I was able to create the maps. My final layout of the maps looked like this:

    You can now see the five different maps that I had to create for this assignment. Upon completion of my maps I took a second to analyze them to see if I could find any patterns or connect any of the dots between organic farms and goat farms. It seemed to me that wherever there was a high number of organic farms, there was a high percentage of goat farms as well. Based on the maps I created I would say that Marathon county would have a thriving organic goat farm along with the any of the counties in southwest Wisconsin. The map that I am most intrigued in is the standard deviations of goat farms map. There is a line separating 1/3 of Wisconsin from the rest. This is the area were there isn't many goat farms. This area is the northern portion of Wisconsin. I have a few speculations as to why this could be. The northern portion of our state deals with much harsher winters, this could bring challenges in raising goats in the winter time. It could also bring challenges in being able to feed goats during the winter as the winters are much longer there compared to in the southwest. In conclusion, Either the very center of the state or the southwestern counties would do well with an organic goat farm. A few problems I have though about is what is considered a goat farm? If someone has two or three goats that are fenced in, is that considered to be a goat farm? Also, some people don't control there livestock or goats and just let them wander. This would cause another problem with trying to figure out what is technically considered a goat farm. Overall, I am happy with the data that was given to me and was able to make fairly accurate maps concerning the topic of organic farms and goat farms in Wisconsin.