GeoQuakes Lab

Objectives
Students will be able to:
Use AJAX to grab data from the USGS earthquakes API
Create and compile a Handlebars template
Use Handlebars templating to display data from an AJAX call on your HTML page
Use the Google Maps API to embed a map

GeoQuakes

In this lab we will be using live data from the USGS (United States Geological Survey), specifically a data set showing significant earthquakes (M4.0 or greater) from the past week.

Our goal is to:

List information about each quake.
Display a Google Map with a pin at the epicenter of each quake.

Part 1. Rendering Data

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the dataset by opening it in your browser: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/4.5_week.geojson.

What is the structure of the data?
- How many earthquakes does it list?
- How would you grab the first earthquake?
  - How would you grab it's title?
  - How would you grab it's geological coordinates:
    - latitude?
    - longitude?
  - When did it happen?
    - How many hours ago is that?

Write out the AJAX call that will grab the data and console.log the list of earthquakes.

Part 2. Add the title data to the page using Handlebars templates

Now, take a moment to familiarize yourself with the layout in index.html.

Your short term goal is to render each title to the <div id="info"> of the page (see the commented example in your HTML)
- write the Handlebars template in the html and give it a unique id and remember to type it correctly.
- Compile the Handlebars template in your javascript.
- In the AJAX success function:
  - pass the data into your template() function.
  - Append the html to the view.

Building up an html string in javascript is no fun and the rows in the <div id="info"> would be unwieldy to build that way. Let's add a Handlebars template.

Part 3. Add Google Maps

Your next goal is to integrate Google Maps:
- Follow the tutorial at Google Maps Javascript API
  - Note that you would normally need to sign up for an API key, but we've provided one (See index.html line 18)
  - Be VERY careful when you copy and paste code!
- Please center your map on San Francisco: { lat: 37.78, lng: -122.44}

Part 4. Add pins to your map

Once you've got the map to show up, your next goal is to drop a single pin on San Francisco. This is a sanity check.

Next, can you add only the first earthquake to the map?
Can you add pins for all the earthquakes to the map?

Bonus:

Extend your template:

Calculate how long ago the quake occurred and add it to the page. E.g. "28 hours ago". Currently, the time that the API returns is in Unix time (seconds since 1/1/1970). That's a nice format for computers, but not a nice format for humans.
Parse the title to only include the location, E.g. Instead of "M 4.2 - 1km ESE of Fontana, California", it should just say "Fontana, California"
Create a visual indicator of the magnitude of a quake. For instance, maybe a 4.0 is indicated by a "yellow" dot, a 5.0 by an "orange" dot, and anything larger is "red".

revy-s / geoquakes