Instrumentation for a G.I.S. Laboratory to Enhance Undergraduate Education

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A Geographic Information System (GIS) laboratory is being developed to demonstrate ecological principles and processes on large spatial scales and promote interdisciplinary research by undergraduate students. GIS technology provides the means for users to input, edit, overlay, analyze, and display any information that has a spatial component (e.g., streams, roads, vegetative cover types, animal movements and locations, elevations). As such, GIS is a powerful tool for studying spatial patterns and relationships. The new laboratory complements existing laboratory and field studies in environmental biology, but provides the technology to investigate the influence of landscape and regional environments on local biotic communities and functions. The laboratory is being equipped with eight Pentium-PC workstations, digitizing tablets, scanner, color printer, digitized data sets, and requisite software packages. Multiple workstations provide access to GIS technology for students enrolled in upper-division ecology and natural resources management classes and for student research teams testing hypotheses in landscape ecology. The laboratory is also being equipped with a mobile Global Positioning System receiver and antenna, so that students can accurately record and store the locations of study plots and boundaries for subsequent entry into the GIS system.