National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

In 1990, the NCGIA published the 1000+ page set of lecture notes, the NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS (Goodchild and Kemp 1990). To support the lecture materials contained in the original Curriculum, in 1991 we published a pair of Technical Reports (Dodson 1991, and Veregin 1991) containing the laboratory exercises developed and taught in the Introductory GIS course in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Since that time, the hardware, software and theory have changed dramatically and it has become necessary to revise these laboratory materials to keep up with these changes. In 1995, the Office of Instructional Development at the University of California provided funds to undertake this major revision. 

This document, then, is the second edition of GIS Laboratory Exercises: Volume 1. Labs 2 to 4 in this new set of exercises draw heavily on the original materials and data, though the text and questions have been revised to be completed using Idrisi for Windows. Labs 5 to 7 are completely redesigned to take advantage of the more user friendly features and practice datasets of ArcView 2. An instructor’s guide is available to accompany these materials.