Visualizing Information:
The Population Dilemma/Fall 1996
Course Description
This course is designed for the first or second year students who are
interested in building confidence in their quantitative skills and who wish to
explore visual ways to express and interpret quantitative information. To
illustrate these concepts, the course revolves around the topic of visual and
quantitative representations of growth and changes in human populations at
scales ranging from local to global. It is a hands-on course to learn how to
use computers for simple data base analysis, graphic representation, data
manipulation, and honesty with data. Students also will be introduced to
computer networks, the World Wide Web, the use of color, and the design of
appropriate visualization schemes.
Each Wednesday afternoon class will begin with a lecture, and then move
to a hands-on workshop. Each of the 15 students will be working at their own
Mac/IBM computer, and there will be five faculty members and one teaching
assistant contributing to the course and working with the students. The lab
exercises each week will be closely tied to lectures, and each student will
have a unique opportunity for instant response on his or her progress in lab.
We want each student to come away from the lab sessions with first hand
experiences of applying the concepts and techniques that have been discussed
that day. To take this course, previous knowledge or involvement with these
topics is not required, but a commitment to learning is vital.
Grading:
- Class Participation
- Portfolio Review
- Final Project
The faculty who are co-teaching this pilot
course are:
- Mark Feinstein: Department of Cognitive Sciences at Hampshire College
- Copper Giloth: Department of Art & Academic Computing at University of
Massachusetts Amherst
- Robert Hallock Department of Physics at University of
Massachusetts Amherst
- Lee Spector: Department of Communications & Cognitive Science at
Hampshire College
- Richard Wilkie: Department of Geoscience & Geography at University
of Massachusetts Amherst
The teaching assistant for this course is:
- Sean Fitzgerald, teaching assistant: Department of Geoscience
& Geography at University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Course Number: Geo 292H
- Time: Wednesday Afternoons: 1:25 to 4:00 pm
- Place: Graduate Research Center, lowrise, A127
- Web Site: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~gibson/vis2.html
- For more information call: Copper Giloth at 545-4833
Last Updated:
August 1, 1996