Advanced GIS

Author Profile

Eugenio Y. Arima
,

arima@hws.edu

Hobart and William Smith Colleges
a

Private four-year institution, primarily undergraduate

Summary

Course URL:
Course Size:

15-30

Course Context:

This is an upper-level elective course in Environmental Studies with prerequisites of introductory GIS. Typically, 60% of the students are geoscience majors or minors (ES majors) and the remaining students from biology or computer science.

Course Goals:

Students should be able to analyze surface terrain characteristics and derived properties (i.e. slope, hydrology, curvature), to create continuous surfaces from a set of points, analyze spatial patterns using geostatistical methods, and integrate GIS with Google Earth.

How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

The course consists of weekly lectures and lab. Labs will provide hands-on experience with the topic being addressed in that particular week. Assignments, lab exercises, two-mid term exams, in-class articles discussions, and a final project will measure how students master the material.

Skills Goals

- Quantitative abilities
- Oral communication (final project and presentation)
- Working in groups (final project can be in groups)

How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

This course will hopefully improve your ability to reason quantitatively through the use of quantitative methods such as data interpolation, error assessment techniques, terrain derivatives, and use of computer programming. Your final project and presentation will be a good chance to improve your oral communication skills and your ability to work in groups.

Attitudinal Goals

think critically about the scientific inquiry process.

How course activities and course structure help students achieve these goals:

Students will write a mini-research proposal, as part of their final project, in which they will have to identifying the problem to be addressed, state a research question, and describe how the methods employed will answer the research question. In the final report, students will be asked to critically examine whether the conclusions follow the results obtained and to address potential weaknesses, shortcomings, and caveats.