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This course covers the fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and how it is being applied in such diverse fields as physical sciences, social/political sciences, planning, marketing, health, criminal justice, natural resources, and engineering. Students will learn the processes to collect, organize, analyze and display geographic data obtained from sources such as address geocoding, GPS, CD-ROM and World Wide Web sites. However, the emphasis of the course will be on data preparation and visualization based on sound knowledge of basic principles of cartographic design. Some preliminary data analysis techniques will be introduced but it is not an emphasis of the course. Each student will complete a series of mini projects that illustrate the typical steps in a GIS project. Major topics include: representation of geography, coordinate systems and map projections, principles of basic cartography, thematic mapping, data acquisition using GPS, geocoding, basic editing, and basic data management and exploration.