New 2 week GIS course next June - want to join us?

GVI and Juniper GIS will be offering a 2-week GIS course in southern Mexico, on the Caribbean coast near Belize and the Sian Ka’an biosphere. This will be an in-depth class using course material Juniper GIS has developed over the years, with a focus on conservation and natural resource data and projects. The course will be taught using ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.3 software and runs from June 14th to June 25th 2009. For more information and booking, please visit http://www.gvi.co.uk/courses/central-america/mexico/GIS-course mexico/home

The course will be divided into 2 sections. The 1st section will teach core GIS skills – working with the software to compile and organize data, use symbology and labels to understand the data, work with table tools to maximize the database functionality of GIS, work with edit tools to create and clean the data, perform basic analysis, and create finished maps. The course projects will use conservation and natural resource data from the US, Kenya and some local data from Mexico and will work with typical conservation scenarios, such as identifying likely areas for elephant habitat, locating fish monitoring sites along rivers, or cleaning data to create burn plans for improving habitat. The 2nd section of the course will focus on advanced skills, including the use of the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension that works with Raster GIS and provides advanced analysis functionality. Students will also learn how to use ModelBuilder to create models and tools for analysis and to improve productivity, and custom tools that will provide new and useful ways to make GIS work better for each student’s needs. The course will work with several analysis projects to demonstrate how these skills can be applied. Students are encouraged to bring their own data to work on in this class, as we will leave time at the end of the week and during evenings to work on your projects with help from the instructor and other students. During this second part of the course, students will have the opportunity to collect data from their habitat of choice: Coral Reefs, Mangroves, freshwater lagoons and lowland tropical forest. Visit http://www.gvi.co.uk/courses/central-america/mexico/GIS-course-mexico/home for ore information

Part One topics will include:

• Using ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcToolbox
• Working with layers, data frames, & maps
• Editing data & managing edit sessions
• Creating layouts in ArcMap
• Creating & using layer symbology in ArcMap
• Labeling features, working with annotation
• Projecting data between coordinate systems
• Working with Routes, XY events, and Linear Referencing
• Managing and editing tables
• Selecting and querying features
• Accessing Excel and Access tables
• Basic Geoprocessing and Analysis tools
• Georeferencing images
• Creating and Working with metadata
• Using the Geodatabase
• Validating attributes with Domains/Subtypes
• Validating features with Topology
• Editing with the Geodatabase

Part two topics in this class will include:

• Understanding raster GIS
• Interpolating surfaces from different types of data
• Using DEM elevation files
• Using Map Algebra for spatial analysis
• Using the Raster Calculator
• Analysis properties & commands
• Distance, Viewshed & Proximity Grids
• Hydrology in ArcGIS
• Using ModelBuilder for analysis and for creating tools
• Introduction to Python scripts
• Using custom tools and scripts

New 2 week GIS course next June - want to join us?