GSP 470/570 Advanced Geospatial Analysis and Modeling By Dr. Jim Graham The Power of Believing You Can Improve

This Class This is a split graduate/undergraduate spatial modeling class in natural resources This will be one of the most challenging classes you’ll probably take You’ll leave with a background in modeling and critical thinking that few GIS professionals ever achieve The material in the class has been combined from previous courses at Colorado State and OSU

Introductions Who are you? What is your major/thesis topic? What do you want to achieve in your career?

Class Info We’ll use Canvas for assignments and grades. A link to the web site for materials is on the home page in Canvas

What is a model? An abstraction of reality We cannot describe all the details They are never perfect Help us to answer questions for problems we cannot test directly spectorlab.cshl.edu

Why do we model?

Modeling is Huge! Modeling is a huge, rapidly growing, and exciting field My background is in habitat suitability modeling with large datasets, primarily for plants There will be new topics we’ll work with to learn together Welcome to research!

Class Goals By the end of class you will be able to: Build your own models in R Articulate the theory, capabilities, and weaknesses of modeling Select appropriate modeling approaches Continue to learn about modeling in your field This is going to help you solve problems (and it looks great on a resume)

How the class works Read the material on the web site and other recommended readings as needed before the lectures/discussions Lectures will cover the material but will focus on key concepts Ask questions on material you don’t understand so we can discuss them Quizzes will test your understanding of the key concepts

Learning Style Our learning styles vary: How do you approach problems? Learning Styles Inventory We’ll need to adapt to each other’s learning styles How do you approach problems? You can do well in this class! Brains are like a muscle, the more you practice, the stronger it gets

What do you need from me? Break into groups of 2-3 Select the top 3 things you need me to do to help you be successful Select someone to add them to the list on the board

From Spring 2019:

Professionalism We’ve seen a decline in professionalism in students over the last 20 years This has led to challenges in interviewing and maintaining positions Points will be deducted for: Being late or leaving during class without a valid reason Not participating Talking while someone else has the floor

To Be Successful Show up for class and lab (on time) Do the readings Spend time getting to know R (play time!) Use your resources to get help! Me Other students Books, articles And the web

How to do the readings: I recommend: Read it once fairly quickly Go back and read key parts and think about them Try the code examples Ask questions about key parts that are unclear Play with the concepts in R until comfortable with them PS: this has taken me years

For $1500 You’re Getting: 2 lecture/discussion sessions per week 1 lab session per week Office hours with the professor Plus additional time as needed Teaching Assistant(s) The library with labs and additional help Access to computer labs and software To work surrounded by people who want you to be successful and need your help too!

Projects You are responsible to present and turn in a completed project at the end of the semester There will be incremental project updates during the semester: Project Plan Data collection update Analysis update Rough draft Final project presentation

Graduate Students Each lead a project team Lead a discussion on a selected article Include citations to scientific literature in their reports Peer-review another group’s project

Start Now! Define your project Start your introduction Find the data! Can be part of your research but must have new content over existing deliverables Start your introduction Start looking for papers Create summaries (annotated bibliography) Add to citation manager (EndNote)