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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}GIS-200pxl.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 160px; float: right;" />What would you use if you want to see how newly introduced wolf populations affect where moose populations live and breed? Or if you wanted to see if lower-income households live closer to hazardous waste sites? Or if you want to see how urban sprawl has affected agricultural landscapes? All these spatial questions can be mapped and answered with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).</p>
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	No technology has revolutionized the practice, management and strategies of environmental stewardship as much as the development of GIS and associated remote sensing techniques, and Au Sable wants its students to catch the wave through its <a href="/courses/course_information/summer_session_ii_great_lakes/#GIS">Environmental Applications for GIS course</a>. GIS is a powerful tool for solving complex environmental problems by enabling environmental professionals to create maps that match and relate different environmental, political, social and biological attributes in space and time. For example, by mapping newly introduced wolf populations and moose populations, conservationists can see how moose populations move over time as their wolf predators hunt them. They can also see how the movements of these moose affect the plant composition in the forests the moose move to or from.&nbsp;</p>
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	Au Sable alum Doug Sponsler, now a PhD student in entomology at The Ohio State University understands the value of GIS, saying, &quot;I would tell students who are serious about going into ecology that a course in GIS could be the single most useful course they take as an undergraduate. Beyond just preparing them for a career in research, GIS proficiency is a practical and employable skill that they can put on their resumes straight out of college.&quot;&nbsp;</p>
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	Sponsler&rsquo;s insights bear out. Scientists and managers with skills in GIS applications have become some of the most sought-after and highly-paid professionals at non-profit organizations and government agencies where they apply these technologies to solve interdisciplinary questions in environmental stewardship. GIS skills are equally valued for incoming graduate students as well.</p>
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	Au Sable alum Nathan Reed, now completing a PhD in marine biology at the Texas A&amp;M University-Galveston, sums up why this course is so important: &quot;Speaking from the perspective of a current graduate student looking at both possible and current research topics, I would venture to say that it is next to impossible to complete a biological graduate degree program- Masters or Doctoral- without some amount of GIS usage&hellip;.The understanding and familiarity of GIS is crucial to any person seeking a career in life sciences.&quot; &nbsp;</p>
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	Today no student giving serious consideration to graduate education or professional employment in conservation can afford to be without GIS skills, and can learn them in this course with firsthand experience in using them to solve environmental and conservation problems. &nbsp;</p>
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	Mark Gathany, Assistant Professor of Biology at Cedarville University, teaches GIS at Au Sable. As a researcher, Gathany has used GIS to solve interdisciplinary questions in soil microbiology, habitat restoration, animal population dynamics, fire ecology and climate change, making him a great guide for students interested in learning how they can apply GIS to their own interest areas. In fact, working on projects in their interest area is a hallmark of this course. Gathany will work with students in <a href="/courses/course_information/summer_session_ii_great_lakes/#GIS">Environmental Applications for GIS</a> to find their own applied GIS project, structure hypotheses and experimental designs and help them work towards completing the project by the end of the course.&nbsp;</p>
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	Au Sable alum, Thad Tuggle, now completing a Master&rsquo;s in Biology at Marshall University (West Virginia) provides a good example of how useful and widespread GIS is, saying, &ldquo;I truly believe having taken GIS as an undergraduate allowed me to be hired on with the Knox County Soil &amp; Water District [Ohio]. The class I took, coupled with the on the job experience, has lead me to use remote sensing [and] GIS as a main component in my thesis.&rdquo;</p>
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	See you in GIS!</p>
