Module 5 Spatial Statistics ~ Math Mayhem

Whew, I made it through this module.  I started by reading, or attempting to read Chapter 3 in our textbooks during my lunch hours.  During an already hectic, brain scrambling day this was a poor choice!  I shifted my focus that evening to the lecture content and moved on to the lab assignment feeling slightly better and ready to analyze some data.  The ESRI training was well organized, with a nice overview including key terms which I printed and saved for future use.  After each module introduction we were provided step by step instructions to repeat the process using different data so that we could form our own conclusions and check them against the ESRI response.  The first module focused on spatial distribution using Mean Center, Median Center and Directional Distribution tools.  This allowed me to determine that my mean and median were similar and that the majority of my data ran in an east westerly direction.  It was important to note that the Median Center was located southeasterly of the Mean Center, most likely due to the cluster of weather stations in that area.  The remaining lessons in the training expounded on the use of additional Geostatistical Analysis Data Exploration Tools to determine if the data fell into a normal distribution, were there any outliers, was it stationary and did it have autocorrelation.  I'm still a bit confused about some of these tools, but can see that they aid in determining areas that might need further study before performing analysis.  In this case, all the tools pointed to La Fretaz in Switzerland as my outlier.  I look forward to more practice and education with regard to spatial statistics.