What you will make

A one-page desktop-screening note with a public map view, search context, source date, limitations, and follow-up questions.

The public map can identify questions worth investigating. Missing mapped information does not establish species absence or provide site clearance.

• Locate the public Map and Species/Communities Search tools.
• Distinguish public planning information from licensed sensitive data and project-review functions.
• Describe a desktop result without making a species-absence or environmental-clearance claim.

Work through the method

1. Define the desktop question

   Choose an area and write a planning question, such as whether conservation information should inform an early site discussion. State the geographic extent. Your exercise will document public information and questions requiring further review.

   Check your work: The note identifies a study area and a specific planning purpose.

2. Use the public tools

   Open NHDE and select Map to view public conservation information. Select Species/Communities Search for summaries by county, watershed, conservation rank, or other available descriptors. Record whether your result concerns a mapped area or a broader geographic summary.

   Check your work: The note records the tool, geographic scope, and search settings used.

3. Preserve the viewing context

   Record the viewing date, visible layers, legend, and available data dates. Include a public map view only with enough labels and scale context to interpret it. Copy resource names into a separate notes table rather than implying that a county summary locates a resource on a parcel.

   Check your work: A reader can distinguish geographic summaries from mapped features.

4. Read the access and use terms

   Read Terms & Conditions. Public planning information does not replace project review or required on-site environmental surveys. Subscription data have separate license and distribution restrictions. Keep this exercise within the public view and do not publish restricted locations.

   Check your work: The note explains the public-access boundary and the review limitation.

5. Write the screening note

   Describe what the selected view showed, list unresolved questions, and state that no mapped record does not prove species absence. Identify an appropriate DCR or environmental-professional follow-up when a specific project needs further assessment.

   Check your work: The note makes no biological-survey, permit, or site-clearance claim.

Optional practice: write a public-data screening note

1. Select a study area relevant to an approved project topic.
2. Use Map or Species/Communities Search and record the geographic scope and viewing date.
3. Create a labeled public map view and a short resource notes table.
4. Add limitations and follow-up questions. This is optional practice, not a class grade or official Canvas assignment.

Bring the method into a product

• Desktop-screening note with a labeled public map view
• Resource notes and follow-up table

Suggested formats: PDF, PNG, CSV.

Reflect: How could a reader overinterpret your map, and what sentence prevents that misunderstanding?

Avoid these mistakes

• Treating no mapped record as proof that a species is absent.
• Treating a county or watershed summary as a parcel-level location.
• Sharing licensed sensitive data as though public-map permissions apply to them.