Collecting Environmental Data

Before you start collecting environmental data think about:

  1. What kind of environmental issues are you interested in – Are you interested in car, water, noise or light pollution?
  2. Once you know what you are interested in, you need to decide what measures or data you are going to collect - Are you going to count the number of cars in your area? Are you going to use the logbooks to sense the amount carbon monoxide in your school car park? Are you going to measure the levels of noise in your local area?
  3. Once you know what you are going to measure you need to learn how to use the equipment that will help you collect your data. Follow the guide below about how to collect your data and use the logbooks and tracking equipment, which will help you to collect and visualise your environmental data.

Basic tips for recording data:

You need to familiarise yourself with the following pieces of kit before recording data. Logbook datalogger, Garmin GPS and JData3D software. You should spend a little time practicing before attempting to use this in a critical situation.

Using the log books:

The Logbook records datafiles from up to 4 sensors at a time, and can store up to 8 datafiles. They can record in either auto-time or snapshot mode. There is a comprehensive quick guide here.

Using GPS:

The Garmin GPS unit has many features. We only need to use a very few. They are shown in the quick guide. There is a short quick guide here.

Using JData3D:

For a very brief overview see this short quick guide here.

For a more comprehensive description of what the software does with the different data streams please read this document here.

Using Google Earth:

To view the Google Earth files you must open the kmz files generated by JData3D. Just double click them and Google Earth will open them and show the data.

You will need to spend a few minutes familiarising yourself with the movement controls of Google Earth, and the control panel on the left of the Google Earth screen contains controls to turn on and off different parts of the visualisation. This again need a few minutes practise, but you will soon be flying around your data.

Using Google Maps:

When you see a Google Map of your data, you will be able to open individual information balloons, to see the actual data recorded by all the sensors you had connected at that moment. The data for the sensor you chose to graph, in JData3D, is shown as the coloured track, against an index on the right of the map.
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