GIS and The GeoSciences Summer Institute

GIS Curriclum: Day 1 and 2

Introductory material and assesment: Roy

GIS What is it and why do we care? Subset of information science, ie databases (Duecker quote, 1979), other definitions.

A neat summary of simple GIS operations is the USGS GIS Research site. Another source of information is: The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) Core Curriculum. There are plenty of links there to other sources of info on the web, especially at the end of the Intro by Goodchild.

Objectives: data types (points, lines, polys, raster, photo), spatial analysis, databases, output (printed or web), coordinate systems,GPS, dowloading and converting available data, using student generated data

Pedagogical approach :-), LTD, my background in IS: applied and academic

Lecture (oooh, ick!) begins:

Relating tabular and spatial data (what's the difference?)

Data types: Points, lines, polygons

ArcView interface elements: objects, properties, buttons and menus

Map units

Activity 1: Excercise 1 from Using Arcview GIS (handout) 45 minutes -1 hour

Turn in: map of life expectancy, observations

Lecurette 2:

Spatial relationships: inside, outside, how far, etc

Database joins

Activity 2: Landslide exercise Part1, 1 -1.5 hours

Turn in: Landslides categorized by size map.

Lecturette 3:

Analyzing spatial relationships

Activity 3: Lanslide exercise Part2, 1 hour

Turn in: Chart of geology type vs # of landslides.

Lecturette 4:

Coordinate systems

File formats

Activity 4: Landslide exercise Part3, 45 min - 1 hour

Lecturette 5:

Raster Data

Activity 5: Spatial analyst exercise (note errors in handout!), 1.5 hours

Turn in: 1) Contour map from p 55, with reclass of surface showing through (turn off the DEM layer) 2) The chart from page 58 of yield and aspect. 3) The chart from page 62 of yield and potassium

That's it! You're GIS dangerous, now!

zipped