Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies for Undergraduate Curricula in the Social Sciences

July 23-28, 2006: Norman, OK

This workshop will explore the uses of geographic information technologies for undergraduate curricula in the social sciences and offer guidance on the uses of these technologies to enhance spatial understanding for undergraduate social science students. Participants will acquire understanding of the utility of remotely sensed data - how they provide nontraditional, and otherwise unobtainable, measures of social phenomena, and how these measures are used with a wide range of population-related data in GIS for the visualization, analysis, and understanding of social dynamics at micro, macro, and global levels. Lectures, demonstrations, tutorials, and group investigations will foster open discussions to stimulate spatial thinking and problem-solving skills, and to translate these into resources for teaching at the undergraduate level. Applicants should already have basic GIS knowledge since GIS will provide the integrated platform for introducing remote sensing and spatial statistics.

Instructors: Tarek Rashed (coordinator), May Yuan, Jon Pedersen (all of The University of Oklahoma), Victor Mesev (Florida State University), and Rebecca Powell (UC Santa Barbara)

Co-sponsor with CSISS: The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science www.ucgis.org

Host institution: Department of Geography and the Center for Spatial Analysis, The University of Oklahoma