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Lakota Studies 400/600:  Special Topics:  Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Science

Week 2 Notes:  Geographic Inquiry

Last week in the reading, you were asked to consider how GIS affects your everyday life.  It is my hope that by adding GIS to our set of lifelong "tools,"  we can not only know how GIS affects us daily, but begin to see how we can start impacting lives through GIS tools and methods.  I firmly believe that people using GIS can make a positive difference in their communities, region, and around the world.   Notice that I wrote that people using GIS can make a difference--not GIS by itself.  GIS is just the tool.  As the Getting to Know ArcView GIS book states in Chapter 3, you provide the questions.  The data user's role--your role--is critical.  Part of what we want to do in this course is to have you thinking spatially--asking the geographic questions of what is the object in question, where is it located on the Earth's surface, why is a phenomenon or object there, how did it get there, how is it related to the features nearby, what is the relationship of it to other phenomena, and what are its temporal characteristics.  The National Geography Standards state that the steps of geographic inquiry, or investigation,  are:

1)  Ask geographic questions 

2)  Acquire geographic resources

3)  Explore geographic data

4)  Analyze geographic information

5)  Act upon geographic knowledge

Geography is the science behind GIS.   Think about the above 5 steps of geographic inquiry and about how GIS can help you with steps 2 through 5.  As indicated in the first paragraph, it is critical that you, the investigator, ask the questions (#1) to begin the investigation. 

GIS is already used effectively on the Rosebud Sioux lands by the Tribal Land Enterprise to manage landholdings, by the water resources staff to ensure a safe water supply, and by cultural resource managers to ensure that sensitive and sacred cultural and archaeological sites are protected and managed.  Take a tour of the following site:

http://www.gis.com

and read about how GIS is used in transportation, planning, water resources, conservation, archaeology, and in many other fields.   As you complete the bibliographies this semester, you will be seeing more and more of GIS in different disciplines and professions.   

Grades

As mentioned last week, because of the nature of the Internet and email sometimes being down for certain periods, if you would like to make sure that I have received your assignments, I can add your name to the  table on the web site for you to easily check that I have received them.  To access this table, go to the SGU GIS Course home and click on the "Grades" link near the bottom of the left green panel.   This is strictly voluntary and meant to reduce some of the stress that normally comes in a graded, accredited course.  You can always email me if you have any questions, rather than viewing them on the web.

Back to SGU GIS Course Home

Author:  Joseph J. Kerski, Geographer, USGS, jjkerski@usgs.gov, 303-202-4315