Exploring the Dynamic Earth: GIS Investigations for the Earth Sciences (with CD-ROM)

The popularity of geographic information system (GIS) software as a tool in the social and physical sciences is growing rapidly. These three modular investigation guides let even novice users tap the power of ArcView GIS to explore, manipulate, and analyze large data sets. Carefully designed and class tested, the guides emphasize the visualization, analysis, and multimedia integration capabilities inherent to GIS, while minimizing the need to master a complex software package. Exploring Water Resources make the nuts and bolts of using ArcView GIS transparent to your students. By focusing on teaching with GIS rather than teaching about it, you can incorporate GIS easily into homework, discussions, or lab sessions. This flexible teaching resource motivates and enables your students to "learn by doing" as they use a full complement of GIS capabilities. EXPLORING THE DYNAMIC EARTH: GIS INVESTIGATIONS FOR THE EARTH SCIENCES complements any introductory course in meteorology, oceanography, physical geography, natural hazards, Earth sciences, atmospheric science, and Earth systems science. The guide leads students through a set of exercises in which they are asked to explore, analyze, and then elaborate on the information extracted from a robust GIS dataset using ArcView, the dominant GIS software tool in the school and college market. The GIS information has been preprocessed into maps and legends, and some ArcView procedures have been automated so students can focus on the science content. Extensive classroom testing at both the college and high school levels shows that students have little difficulty using the ArcView data sets to perform the exercises.

Michelle Hall and The SAGUARO Project team have developed a series of four GIS INVESTIGATIONS over the course of the last few years. These materials have been extensively class-tested at both the college and high-school level using funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Larry Kendall is an independent consultant.

C. Scott Walker is with Harvard University.