Student Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes for the geospatial sciences undergraduate program

• Students will acquire an understanding of and appreciation for the relationship between geography and culture.
• Students will acquire an understanding of and appreciation for the role that geography can play in community engagement.
• Students will develop the ethical aptitudes and dispositions necessary to acquire and hold leadership positions in industry, government, and professional organizations.
• Students will read, interpret, and generate maps and other geographic representations as well as extract, analyze, and present information from a spatial perspective.
• Students will understand through lectures but also local, regional, and/or international travel the interconnection between people and places and have a general comprehension of how variations in culture and personal experiences may affect our perception and management of places and regions.
• Students will have a general understanding of physical geographic processes, the global distribution of landforms and ecosystems, and the role of the physical environment on human populations.
• Students will have a general understanding of cultural geographic processes, the global distribution of cultural mosaics, and the history and types of interaction between people within and among these mosaics.
• Students will have a general understanding of global human population patterns, factors influencing the distribution and mobility of human populations including settlement and economic activities and networks, and human impacts on the physical environment.
• Students will be able to think in spatial terms to explain what has occurred in the past as well as using geographic principles to understand the present and plan for the future.
• Students will have a general understanding of how the physical environment, human societies, and local and global economic systems are integral to the principles of sustainable development.
• Students will have a general understanding of the various theoretical and methodological approaches in both physical and human geography and be able to develop research questions and critically analyze both qualitative and quantitative data to answer those questions.
• Students will be able to present completed research, including an explanation of methodology and scholarly discussion, both orally and in written form and, wherever possible, utilize cartographic tools and other visual formats.
• Students will acquire knowledge of the foundations and theories of digital cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing.
• Students will acquire skills of applying spatial data analysis, feature extraction, and thematic mapping techniques to analyze biophysical or socioeconomic geographic information.
• Students will acquire the ability of working individually and as a team to develop and present a client-driven geospatial solution.