Medgar Evers College
Department of Physical Environmental and Computer Sciences

Introduction To GIS
Geographic Information Systems
CS 319/ ENVS 319/ PHS319
Summer 2000
Credits 3.0
Hours 4.0
Days: Tuesdays/ Wednesdays 12:30pm – 4:00pm
Thursdays 1:00pm – 4:00pm (City College)
Instructor: Dr. Winfield Sylvester

Text: 1. Fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems, 2nd Edition,
Michael N. DeMers, John Wiley and Sons

         2. Getting To Know Arc View GIS, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.

To The Student: There is growing awareness of the inherent geophysical nature of some of the most important problems facing our world today. The geographic roots of GIS follow a lineage of nearly 2,500 years of geographic exploration and research. In the early 1960s, a body of knowledge began to be formalized as a set of computer tools to input, store, retrieve, analyze and output natural information for the Canadian Geographic Information System, inaugurated efforts around the world to formalize and automate geographic principles to solve spatial problems related to the managing of natural resources.

After nearly 40 years of development, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is now a mainstay for solving geographic problems not only for natural resources, but also for a myriad of physical and human endeavors: from crime and disease analyses and prevention to emergency vehicle research and spatial data exploration; and from utility management to military simulations. The potentials of GIS are enormous and still growing.

 

Scope of the GIS Course: GIS is about thinking geographically. It opens our awareness of examining and analyzing the world around us. Its principal task is analysis and decision making. The course is meant as an overview of the discipline at a basic level. It provides a set of basic concepts upon which, students will, through the pursuit of additional work and practical experience, develop new applications, new theories, and new software. The language and tools of GIS will be explored in these sessions. The Arc View GIS software from ESRI will be demonstrated and practiced in the laboratory.

 

Course Content 

Lecture

Topic 1: Introduction to Automated Geography

Topic 2: Spatial Analysis: the Foundation of Modern Geography

Topic 3: The Map as a Model of Geographic Data: The Language of Spatial

ThinkingTopic 4: Cartographic and GIS Data Structures

Topic 5: Input, Storage and Editing

Topic 6: Analysis: Inside GIS

Topic 7: GIS Output

Topic 8: GIS Design

Demonstration and Hands-on GIS

Session 1: Arc View Basics

Session 2: Working with Spatial Data

Session 3: Querying Data

Session 4: Managing Tabular Data

Session 5: Analyzing Spatial Relationships

Session 6: Presenting Information

Session 7: Creating Your own Data

Recommended Text: Arc View GIS Exercise Book: Pat Hohl and Brad Mayo, 2nd
Edition (Onward Press)