Mapping a Sustainable World

As a core first year module, Mapping a Sustainable World aims to provide students with a foundation in geographical data, mapping, spatial analysis and writing skills. It will explore the organisation and manipulation of geospatial data, cognitive mapping and basic statistics, and will address locational considerations (e.g. coordinates and space), map projections, and map design. It will also introduce technological tools and methods available to map, analyse and disseminate geographical information. The module will be mainly tutorial-based but will include lectures and local fieldwork, providing an interactive and applied learning environment to explore technical and technological geospatial methods and approaches. In doing so, it will enhance students’ geospatial awareness and provide them with skills to examine relationships, interactions and interdependencies between human and physical components of the environment. It will provide skills applicable across the rest of the modules in the first and subsequent stages of the Geography curriculum and, in particular, prepare students for the core Geographic Information Systems module in stage 2.