Advanced technical, legal, ethical, and institutional problems related to data acquisition for geospatial information systems.

This course is organized around seven projects and a capstone assignment. Each project includes readings, quizzes, and discussions about concepts and tools in cartography and visualization. Throughout the course, students complete “mile marker” assignments that are designed to help them progress toward the capstone assignment. Through the course projects, students confront realistic problem scenarios that incorporate such skills and concepts as creating symbolization schemes, coordinate systems and map projections, creating isoline and other terrain representations, interpolation, classification schemes, multivariate representation and representation of data uncertainty. Those who successfully complete the course are able to design and produce effective reference and thematic maps using GIS software and can interpret and critique maps and related information graphics.

This course explores a variety of GIS software packages and some key concepts needed to evaluate them for different uses. The goal is not to make you an expert in each package, but rather to provide a context for evaluating GIS software. Ideally, by course's end you will be comfortable with the idea of evaluating or managing the evaluation of GIS software products for a specific purpose.

Conservation GIS applies geospatial problem solving to ecological research and resource management issues to enhance conservation planning. This course emphasizes the unique nature of each conservation problem and the multiple pathways that may result depending upon the geospatial techniques that are applied. Problem understanding is emphasized as a prerequisite to the application of the full range of possible geospatial techniques that could be used to unravel complex conservation challenges. Map making, a common thread when working with GIS, is only the beginning in this course and students will use the written word to describe the decision process that used to address each problem addressed in the course.

These videos support Penn State's fully online course on Conservation GIS, GEOG 587.

This course will introduce you to a variety of topics from different disciplines within the Earth sciences, with the aim of piquing your interest in areas of current research being conducted here at Penn State.

EARTH 530 will introduce you to the basic information necessary for understanding Earth surface processes in the Critical Zone through an integration of various scientific disciplines. Those who successfully complete EARTH 530 will be able to apply their knowledge of fundamental concepts of Earth surface processes to understanding outstanding fundamental questions in Critical Zone science and how their lives are intimately linked to Critical Zone health.

This course will covers a basic understanding and appreciation of energy efficiency and environmental concepts, basic operating principles of day-to-day energy conversion devices, various options to increase energy efficiency, ways to save energy and money, and ways to save the environment.

Presents the Roundtable Discussion and Individual Presentations on Penn State's Energy Future of November 18, 2009. Sponsored by the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State's Office of the Physical Plant, and the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment.

Course provides undergraduate students with an in-depth exploration of energy policy development, implementation, and assessment at multiple governmental and corporate scales. The course utilizes contemporary real-world problems and actions to provide students context for the drivers, frameworks, and assumptions of energy policy.

Introduces the basics of energy from how we measure it, to how it is regulated and priced, to how you can engage in exciting new opportunities for energy efficiency, green architecture, and renewable energy. Recorded in May 2008 by Penn State University for the Local Development Districts of Pennsylvania's Energy Partnership, in Milton, PA.

This workshop will assist organizations by helping them understand their operational choices in terms of energy supply and market pricing. Be prepared to take take advantage of new pricing options and efficient technologies, obtain financial incentives and focus budget dollars on core operations.

EARTH 105 investigates the interrelationships between geology, hydrology, land use and human development in several areas of Africa. We focus primarily on regions north of the equator, although there is a brife segment on South African mining. Specific topics include the Nile River (sources of the Nile, agricultural practices, effects of damming the Nile, and hydropolitics), the Sahara and Sahel (salt mines, climate change, drought, and wather resources), and natural resources and their role in politics (gold, diamonds, oil, and gas). The theme of climate change cuts across the entire semester. The quantitative and analytical components of the course involve working through a combination of map exercises and data manipulations (flood stage, groundwater age, rainfall, and temperature records). Readings for the course come from the popular scientific literature, current refereed journals, and transcribed oral histories of African people. In addition to those external reading assignments, students read online "lecture" materials and engage in weekly learning activities (some of which are submitted for a grade, while others are for self-practice). Students also engage in weekly online, asynchronous class discussions.

This course is designed specifically for science teachers who seek to enrich their knowledge of oceanography and contemporary principles of the fluid Earth

Meteo 361 focuses on mesoscale meteorology and mesoscale forecasting.

This is a reading on active and passive microwave sensing from satellites. Precipitation readings from Hurricane Dolly, as it approached the coast of Texas in 2008, are used as a demonstration of how satellites provide forecasters the opportunity to gauge the disposition of tropical cyclones away from land.

This reading explains the high-frequency radar scatterometer and how scatterometry gives forecasters the ability to detect tropical cyclones in their earliest stages of development.

The lessons in Geography 484 cover creation and editing of vector data layers; georeferencing image files; principles of relational database design; acquiring data via the Internet; managing the coordinate systems of datasets; metadata creation and editing; attribute and spatial joins, and thematic mapping for the sake of analysis; and much more. We give the people who feel they have the experience and skills covered in Geography 484 the option of testing out of the course by completing the final exam. This site outlines the requirements of that final exam. People who successfully complete the final exam (with a score of 70% or better) can then proceed to the next course.

This course cultivates a working knowledge of how geospatial professionals can develop web mapping applications that bring together data from multiple sources. GEOG 863 will provide students with an understanding of the technology that makes building mashups possible and teaches them how to build their own mashups.