11/02/07Geographic information systems may seem like a topic that only has a place in military headquarters or a laboratory, but Baker University students had a chance to get their feet wet with GIS during a first-half special topics course.
The Geographic Information Systems class pulled in a variety of Baker and University of Kansas faculty and staff to give students an introduction to using geo-data within their majors or areas of interest.
“It was an introductory class on how you make maps with free information you can get online,” senior Andrew McGregor said. “We used ArcMap, and it allows you to upload layers of information.”
McGregor said the information could be downloaded from many places, depending on the information required, like water or road data from a government Web site. From there, other data like census information could be integrated to make the map more complex.
The class was instructed by Julia Todd, government documents librarian; Kay Bradt, director of library services; Kevin McCarthy, chair of the business and economics department; and William Miller, assistant professor of biology. Xan Wedel, an information specialist at the KU Institute of Policy and Social Research, and Rhonda Houser, GIS and data services specialist for KU libraries, provided training and support for the Baker faculty and staff.
Todd said GIS was first used in the marketing class taught by John Pepper, assistant professor of business and economics, and then Miller taught an interterm in 2006 that featured GIS.
“We didn’t duplicate that class but used some parts,” Bradt said. “I think the whole idea of the course is to take data and show it on a map and expose (the students) to some different types of applications.”
Miller, who began using GIS 10 years ago in his research of a microscopic organism, said a benefit of learning to map was its relevance to nearly any field of study.
“There are tremendous career opportunities out there,” he said. “It’s a great add on for other fields, any field that deals with places.”
Bradt gave examples of natural scientists mapping trees, a city deciding where to locate a new library branch based off of census data or someone interested in literature mapping Charles Dickens’ London.
“It may be down the road people start including GIS into methods courses,” Todd said.
Todd said one of the things she discovered during the course of the class was Baker’s lack in GPS technology, causing her to write a grant proposal requesting funds to purchase about 10 hand-held GPS units.
McGregor, a history major, is taking the skills he learned in the course to enter a project in the KU GIS Day held Nov. 14. He said the final result would be a map that shows the location of buildings in Baldwin City constructed by the same builder and feature specific information about each of the homes.
“I’ll definitely use it in the future,” McGregor said. “For history purposes, you can map different trails or historical things. You can take a GPS unit out and write coordinates and implement them into your map. You can make it so exact that if anyone wants to find what you found in the middle of nowhere, they can use your map to find it.”