GEO 425 / EVS 525Introduction to Geographic Information Systems & Remote SensingW. B. Clapham, Jr.SR G-70 (office); SR G-71 (lab)[216] 687-4820 (office); [440] 669-9530 (cell)[email protected], 2011PURPOSE: The purpose of this course is to introduce students to Remote Sensing and GeographicInformation Systems (GIS), which have become perhaps the most important new tools for dealing withspatially distributed data in a broad range of fields. We shall concentrate, in this course, on theapplications of GIS in research in geography, geology, environmental science, and natural resources. Because the overwhelming majority of these applications use data derived from remotely sensed imagery,the majority of our data sources will be from remote sensing.The course includes both a lecture and a laboratory. The lecture portion of the course will present thetheoretical aspects of GIS. The laboratory will provide hands-on experience with the industry standard raster-based GIS package, ERDAS Imagine. The goal of the lecture portion of the course is to provide abroad introduction of Remote Sensing and GIS as fields; it will deal with both raster-logic and vector- logicGIS systems and the relationship between remotely sensed imagery and the data most commonly used ingeographic information systems. The laboratory portion is designed both to enable the student both toperform some meaningful analyses of data and to provide a foundation for the student to learn other GISsoftware packages that he or she may encounter in the future. It will concentrate on raster-logic GIS andits applications to remote sensing, although it will touch on vector-logic GIS as well.MATERIALS: The course has one textbook: Introduction to Remote Sensing (5 edition), by James B.thCampbell. This book is available both at the University Bookstore and from sources such asAmazon.com. Sharing is encouraged! This will also be the textbook for the forthcoming GEO/EVS427/527, advanced Topics in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems, which is scheduledto be offered in the Spring. Any investment you make in the textbook will serve you for both courses. The laboratory for the course will take place in the Environmental Remote Sensing Laboratory of theDepartment of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences (SR G-71). All files which you willneed are either on the department’s computer network or can be obtained from the WorldWide Web.GRADING: Grades will be based on three separate parts: Your portfolio of materials produced forindividual laboratories will be 40% of your grade. The final examination will be 35% of your grade. Sharingideas on the on-line course discussion group and in recitations will be 25% of your grade. Laboratories are important. GIS is very much a hands-on activity, and you need to do it in order to learn it. It is for this reason that laboratory work will account for 65% of your grade (i.e. the portfolio and thediscussions that stem from your work in the laboratory). You should take this portion of the course quiteseriously. You will receive two grades for each laboratory unit: one on the portion of the laboratory goinginto your portfolio and one on your discussion, both on the on-line discussion group and in the recitationitself. Note that you will benefit from completing the exercises prior to the recitation, so that you can bringhard copy of your results to class, and you will also benefit from contributing new observations and ideasto the on-line discussion group, so that your colleagues can consider your thoughts prior to the recitation.We will have only one (final) examination in this course. It will be a practical exercise that will deal bothwith those aspects of GIS that are introduced in the course that have not been covered in the practicallaboratory work and with those issues that have been considered in laboratories in detail. Its purpose is tointegrate the laboratory and the lecture materials. You will have one week to complete this examination.LABORATORY UNITS: Laboratories in this course will all work in the same general fashion. You'llreceive a handout in the recitation on Tuesday afternoon. This handout will include detailed instructionsfor the following week's work in the laboratory, as well as a specification for materials to be included inyour portfolio. You can do the laboratory work anytime you choose. All work will be done in the BGESRemote Sensing Laboratory, Science Research G-71.One of the things included in the instructions for the some of the laboratories may be an explanation of theicons or menu selections that you will be dealing with as you carry out the laboratory exercise. You maywish to collect these as references for your use throughout the semester. You should also note that manyof the icons represent actions that can also be accomplished using the mouse or keystrokes on thekeyboard. I will try to indicate as many of these as possible, but you should learn to keep it in mind thatthere are often several ways to "skin the cat".It is to be anticipated that these exercises will raise questions. Indeed it is to be hoped that they will raisequestions in your minds that will lead you to experiment. In either case, you should communicate yourquestions, observations, plans, etc. to the class as a whole. You'll do this using the class discussiongroup on Blackboard. To access Blackboard, you can use Netscape or Internet Explorer to go to thecourse discussion group home page (www.bges.csuohio.edu/dg.htm), and click on the link to Blackboard. Note that this discussion group for both undergraduate and graduate sections of the course is listed underthe graduate section, EVS 525.The format of all of the units in this course is the same. The first part of the unit will contain the detailedinstructions for the exercises within the unit. The second part will be a series of questions, which you areto answer on the discussion group prior to the recitation. The questions and observations which you raiseand share with your colleagues in the class will serve as the springboard for our discussions in therecitation. Your contributions to the recitations -- both using the discussion group and in your inner-classcomments -- will constitute a significant portion of your grade. The third part of each unit will be a specificassignment for your portfolio. At the beginning of the semester, as you are still learning how to useImagine, these portfolio