During our mapping of the Field Research Station we have found that using GPS is not that hard. It's like using a simple handheld computer that navigates by menus to different features. Pathfinder Office is also fairly simple. You use it mainly to transfer data between the computer and the GPS unit. It’s also used to differential correction your data and to make data dictionaries to load onto the GPS unit. Arc View takes time to learn. It was worth the time and effort to learn because it gave us so much freedom and so many options. Arc View is not a good recommendation for someone to start with but it’s okay to use once you’ve taken the tutorials for it. It is very complicated to new people and it is not the kind of program that you can teach yourself how to use. Thankfully, we had the benefit of online tutorials. With some time, they taught us to easily use the features that we needed. The Field Research Station was a very nice place to learn. There were many habitats to work in and nice trails to travel on. Some of the habitats included: hills, forests, ponds, and streams. Along with collecting map data, there was wildlife to see. We saw grouse, deer, and different kinds of birds.
