About:

Sponsored by the City of Chelsea's Department of Housing & Community Development, our team created digital maps, a report, and massive pack of federal mapped data to help identify communities in the city vulnerable to environmental hazards such as high heat and air pollution.

Included on this portfolio as an example of data preparation, adaptability, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Development details:

Roles: Data preparation, Author
Languages: SQL
Tools: ArcGIS Pro, Microsoft Office, Google Workspace
Team size: 4
Development time: ~7 weeks preparation, ~7 weeks execution
Developed: 2021

My role:

Data preparation

• Gathered and parsed data from city records and federal organizations
• Data visualization: generated and studied maps of overlapping patterns of data
• Troubleshot technical issues
• Organized mapped data for ease of use by sponsor organization

Author

• Researched and detailed background and findings in 25-page report
• Communicated with Chelsea officials and advisor to clarify (sometimes competing) goals and standards
• Presented findings and explained methodology at end-of-term meeting with sponsor organizations
• Maintained collaboration among an interdisciplinary group during full work weeks

Lessons learned:

Know what you don't know.

For this project, we were a team working outside of our areas of expertise, delivering a product meant to help experts. As a result, we asked a lot of questions and delivered files that our project stakeholders could re-analyze themselves. In our report, we acknowledged our limits as a student team, deferring to the opinions of experts in community planning.

Clarify goals quickly.

Keeping in frequent contact with project stakeholders allowed our team to ensure that, on tight deadlines, we would deliver something of genuine worth at the end of the project without having to re-do too much work as we went. For a project that involved parsing so much data, this was a must.

Links:

Download the report here
View the published report online here
Learn more about Interactive Qualifying Projects