Informatics Center Internship

The Informatics Center offers undergraduate internships in the application of information technology to problems in agriculture and the environment. These are ordinarily offered in one quarter for two units of course credit in either AMR 192 or ABT 192. Internships are offered subject to the availability of faculty research projects. Interested students should contact the Center Director, Richard Plant, replant@ucdavis.edu.

Geographic information system and remote sensing

The student will carry out a project in geographic information systems or remote sensing analysis, working on a project approved by the Director of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Informatics Center. In general, the project will have been submitted by a College faculty member and will be a part of his or her research program. The student will work under the supervision of Informatics Center staff and will meet with the supervising staff member on a regular basis. At the end of the quarter the student will submit a written report approximately five pages in length together with GIS and other files created during the course of the analysis. A grade of Pass will be awarded based on satisfactory completion of the report.

Projects

Comparison of High School Accessibility to Food Outlets: High and Low Income Areas

"The percentage of children and adolescents who are overweight and obese is now higher than ever before. For adolescents (ages 12 to 19), 30.4 percent are overweight and 15.5 percent are obese." As a first step to better understand this problem among high school students, we used GIS to map two high schools in each of four counties: Alameda, Butte, Solano and Contra Costa. Buffers varying from one to four miles were drawn around each school. Food sources within the buffers were mapped, including fast food outlets, supermarkets, small corner markets, and liquor stores.

The next step is to compare levels of obesity/overweight for each school, when these data become available, with the sources (quality and quantity) of food.

For more information on this project, contact:
Daniel Woo, BS, Design & Environmental Policy and Planning, GIS Intern, or
Marilyn Townsend, Cooperative Extension Specialist, Nutrition Department