Millersville University's Geography Department features courses in the Geography of Pennsylvania and in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. This website brings both skills together.
Students in Dr. Geiger's upper level course Advanced GIS (GEOG 395) learn to create interactive map-based webpages using technologies made available by Esri, the makers of ArcGIS software, and Google, who makes resources used in creating their well-known Google Maps website freely available. The students spend one semester learning basic webpage design (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) as well as the integration of interactive maps into those pages. The Esri resources used are ArcGIS for Server and Esri's JavaScript API.
The students in Dr. Geiger's Geography of Pennsylvania (GEOG 245) course are the primary target audience for these maps. They will use the information on these webpages and maps in completing course assignments.
Because these maps were created in an educational setting with education as their purpose, two other pages have been added to the site. The first is a page of printable maps which teachers and other educators may wish to use. These are made available free of charge, with the assumption that you will not use them for any financial gain. These printable maps were also created by Millersville University Geography Students in our upper level Cartography (GEOG 384) course. The second additional page that may be of interest is a page of links to sites I have found useful in teaching the Geography of Pennsylvania. I have only just started the list, so the number of links is limited at present. I anticipate adding to it periodically.
The Advanced GIS students have chosen their own themes and found the data to implement their visions for these pages. While several page elements have been standardized for some website continuity, they are encouraged to explore and use their creativity, as well as their GIS skills. You will notice that several of the themes have not had maps developed for them yet. It is anticipated that this situation will be remedied within the next year or two, so please be patient.
These pages have been created over several years now, while ArcGIS has gone through several revisions and the Esri JavaScript API has changed. In those cases Dr. Geiger has adapted the students' orginal design to the new standards in order to maintain the original functionality, while trying to maintain the original visions. As a result, several pages are still in the process of being updated.
We would be happy to receive your feedback. If you have any difficulties using the site, please let me (Dr. Geiger) know and I will work on correcting the problems. Please be as specific as you can about your hardware (windows PC vs. Mac, etc.), operating system version and browser software. If you have suggestions for additional map themes or categories, or for additional printable maps or PA website links, I would love to hear them, though I cannot promise the students will implement them any time soon. Finally, if you find our work useful, I would appreciate hearing the context and purpose for which you are using it.
Dr. Chuck Geiger
Geography Department
Millersville University
Millersville, Pennsylvania (USA) 17551
e-mail: cgeiger@millersville.edu