Description

This course introduces earth and environmental science students to applications of geographic information systems, emphasizing hands-on field experience in collecting spatial location data and in mapping environmental data using GIS software. Covers fundamentals of: geodesy; spherical and plane coordinate systems; spatial data concepts, including error, accuracy, and precision; location measurement technologies including GPS: vector and raster GIS data structures and file types, basic GIS operations, including georeferencing of raster files and editing of vector files; assembly of field data over a base map; analysis of spatial relationships using GIS tools; symbology and methods of map presentation.