Programming Principles in GIS: Introduction to Programming & Python

Spring 2018, Tuesday/Thursday, 10:30-11-45, COOR 191

This course introduces you literally from “Scratch” to programming in Python for GIS applications. The goal of this course is that students learn and understand various concepts of coding, learn how to code Python, get practice in using Python for coding projects and begin to learn how Python is useful in Geosciences and GIS. Scratch is a visual online programming language that is used in education, art and many other disciplines for people of all ages. We will begin the semester with a creative Scratch project that will - depending on the student’s previous knowledge - introduce, refresh or deepen general concepts of coding. In the further weeks, students will be introduced to principles in programming and the Python coding language in the form of lectures and with coding assignments. We will work on incrementally growing coding projects to deepen the students coding practice. In the second half of the semester, we will also explore useful software packages for analyzing, displaying and presenting geo- and science data. The end of the semester will consist of a larger coding project, that is relevant and important to the student.