Course Description
Principles and Methods of Geographic Information Systems is a first course in cartography and spatial analysis. This course will teach you how to read and “write” maps. We’ll learn how to use maps as descriptive tools to communicate information about places and we’ll learn to use maps as analytical tools to understand complex geographic relationships.
This course is different from most technical courses you’ve taken. Instead of simply learning techniques through a textbook, lectures, and lab exercises this course encourages you to engage local problems and possibilities. With support from the Howard Swearrer Center for Public Service and the Healthy Communities Initiative students are encouraged to work on projects that have a local component- for example, exploring geographic inequalities, working with community based organizations on cartographic projects.
We learn through a combination of lectures and hand’s on exercises with ESRI’s ArcGIS software. The primary goal of the course is to produce savvy users of geographic information and related computer technology. We cover the following topics:
- Perspectives on GIS
- Data modeling, databases, and SQL
- Geographic Data Modeling – Ontology, objects, and fields
- Coordinate systems and projections
- Elements of Cartography
- Networks and geocoding
- Census Geography and global population databases
- Map algebra
- Encoding spatial relationships, scale, and the MAUP
- Spatial Statistics I: Describing Patterns
- Spatial Statistics II: Describing Relationships
This course will introduce you to the theory and practice of using geographic information and specialized software for handling spatial data. The objectives of this course are:
· To foster critical thinking about maps and spatial information.
· To teach the foundations of Geographic Information Science, the theoretical and technical issues around the production and consumption of spatial information.
· To teach cartography and spatial analysis with ArcGIS.
This course will offer lectures on concepts and theory related to using GIS as well as hands-on experience with GIS software (ESRI’s ArcGIS). The primary goal of the course is to produce savvy users of geographic information and related computer technology. The weekly lab section (Thursdays) will emphasize software while the lecture (Tuesdays) will focus on concepts.