Academic – Center for Integrated Spatial Research

Today, spatial technology is recognized as the primary means of dealing with information referenced to a specific location and is being integrated across a broad range of disciplines. Geospatial careers exist in every imaginable field, with many applications in resource and environmental management, commercial business and marketing, urban and regional planning, defense, map production, research, and beyond.

To serve this diverse enterprise, several academic departments at UCSC offer courses designed to educate students in GIS, remote sensing, and related spatial technologies and methods.

To view the academic courses available:

Course Number	Course	Department	Quarter	Description

Course Number	Course	Department	Quarter	Description
ENVS 115/215	Geographic Information Systems	Environmental Studies	Fall	Introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) as the technology of processing spatial data, including input, storage and retrieval; manipulation and analysis; as well as, specialized theoretical and conceptual discussions on dealing with spatial information. Provides the basic skills that will enable students to engage in advanced spatial modeling projects.
ENVS 196	Intermediate Topics in GIS	Environmental Studies	Winter	This senior seminar is intended to explore more advanced training in spatial theory and methods and their application to unique geographic problems. Students will have the opportunity to expand on the skills learned in previous GIS courses through instructor and student-led discussions, literature readings, and labs. Course content will cover intermediate topics on surface analysis, spatial interpolation, fuzzy-modeling, network modeling, spatial statistics, spatial database design, and building geoprocessing models.
ENVS 291	Spatial Research and Modeling	Environmental Studies	Spring	Introduction to advanced topics in spatial modeling and quantitative geography. Emphasis is on applied experience in advanced spatial analysis topics; general spatial statistics for measuring spatial distributions, patterns and clusters; predicting geographic phenomena through spatially-explcit statistical methods; and extending GIS through scripting. This is a graduate-level course only.
EART 107	Remote Sensing of the Environment	Earth and Planetary Sciences	Winter	Introduction to geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) as valuable tools in the study of geology. Covers application of GIS/RS to study of surface processes, including landslides, hydrologic basins, coastal erosion, modern floods, volcanic activity and surface deformation.
EART 188B	GIS in the Earth Sciences	Earth and Planetary Sciences	Spring	Introduction to basic principles of geographic information systems (GIS). Visualization of earthscapes with applications to problem-solving in the Earth sciences. Laboratory exercises in loading, manipulation, and interpretation of data sets. Field investigations of phenomena visualized in laboratory, including geological description, interpretation, and written report preparation.
AMS 245	Spatial Statistics	Applied Mathematics and Statistics	Spring	Introduction to the analysis of spatial data: theory of correlation structures and variograms; kriging and Gaussian processes; Markov random fields; fitting models to data; computational techniques; frequentist and Bayesian approaches.

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Search for the above courses in the Academic Catalog.