Introduction
This week involved gaining knowledge of how to navigate on our feet using only a compass and map. In the upcoming weeks our class will be assigned to navigate a point course set up by our professor Joe Hupy and Al Wiberg, a instuctor at UWEC environmental center. It involved finding our walking pace, using a compass to find the azimuth a destination, and prepparing a grid map on ArcMap of the UWEC priory's location.
Methods
The first objective of the week was to find our walking pace. To do this the class measured out a straightline 100 meters and walked down the line counting every other step. This was done twice counting steps on the way there and the way back and taking the average of the two. Find the walking pace will be very useful when navigating the point course at the priory. My walking pace ended up being 61 paces and therefore knowing that my pace will be 61 steps for every 100 meters it will help when navigating the distance between points.
The next step of gaining knowledge on how to navigate using distance bearing, is knowing how to use a compass. Al Wiberg taught the class how to find the azimuth reading using a map. When using a map and a compass, in order to get from one place to another the compass must be place on a straight line from one point to the other. Then using a pencil draw a line between the two dots and face the compass north. Once it is completly straight witht the north arrow point straight north and the azimuth will be known. Then by holding the compass directly infront of the chest, the compass can be read to find the straight line distance to the point. However, when navigating the magnetic declination should be taken into account. The magnetic declination is the force the magnetic pole has on the compass and the compass should be rotated a certain amount of degrees, depending on your location, to account for the declination.
The last objective of the week was to create a grid map of the priory area made by Joe and Al. This will be the classes area of study when trying to navigate using compass and map. The first step was to pick background images of what to map and use two different coordinate systems. The first map I created used a Universal Tranverse Mercator (UTM). UTM projectes the world by dividng sections in 6 degrees of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Eau Claire falls into UTM zone 15, which was used by me in the first map as you can see in figure 3. The next coordinate system used for the second map was the state plane coordinate system for central Wisconsin. The projection divides each state into sections and in this case Eau Claire falls in the central plane system. The UTM used meters when alligning the grid and the state plane system used decimal degrees to allign the grid.
The next step to create the grids was to choose a images of the priory. Figure 2 below shows the background image I choose to grid.
Figure 1: The square outline in black is the area of the priory
the red lines represent elevation and represeting them by using contour
lines. The aerial image was taken from USGS and is of Eau Claire.
Figure 2: I choose to use the countour lines to show the elevation
that our class will encounter when navigating. Each line represetns
5 meters of elevation.
After choosing the background images the next step was to set up a grid systems. This can be done by following view>data frame properties>grid>new grid. The first grid map, figure 3, was set up by ever 50 meters and using the UTM coordinate system. The grid was then edited to format the labels and intervals which can be done in grid properties.
Figure 3: Grid map of thep priory area in Eau Claire.
This area will be navigated by our class in the upcoming weeks using
a compass and a map. The map can be edit by choosing properties and
extended properties, for the label and intervals.
Figure 4: This image is showing the main
menu to create a grid
Figure 5: The next map using the central state system for Wisconsin and was mapped in decimal degrees.
Figure 5 : Very similar to figure 3 but maped in decimal degrees
and using the central state system for Wiscons.
Disscussion/ Conclusion
Taking the first steps in learning how to navigate using a compass and map to find the bearing distance between two points is going to be very helpful when navigating the field. This is also going to be helpful in the real world if I ever get lost and need to find my way to safety. I am looking forward to navigating with my group to see how successful our skills will be. This is an important step for a geographer, instead of just using a GPS to naviagate and realying on our critial thinking skills to find our way, because "technology will fail you".
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