Program Details : University Catalogs : University of Minnesota

GEOG 3111 - Geography of Minnesota

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Every Spring & Summer

The evolution of Minnesota and its current geographical characteristics. The state is a unique political entity that possesses similarities with other states because of the homogenizing influence of the federal government.

GEOG 3371W - Cities, Citizens, and Communities (DSJ, WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Typically offered:	Every Fall, Spring & Summer

Introduction to cities and suburbs as unique crossroads of cultural, social, and political processes. Competing/conflicting visions of city life, cultural diversity, and justice. Focuses on the American city.

GEOG 3373 - Changing Form of the City (HIS, GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Urban origins, ancient cultures/cities, the medieval city, rediscovery of planning, colonial cities. Industrialization and urban expansion. Speculative cities, utopian cities, planning triumphs/disasters. Cities as reflections of society, culture, the past.

GEOG 3376 - Political Ecology (ENV)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Every Fall

Environmental problems and political economic processes are intimately connected. The latter shape where and how people encounter nature, who has access to resources, and which communities are exposed to or protected from environmental harms. In this course, you will join others in examining how environmental problems are produced and how people organize to address them. Through readings, video, film, and lectures you will learn to identify the racial and class dimensions of environmental change. You will also understand the goals and principles of the environmental justice movement and explore inspiring struggles to build socially just ecological relations. Over the course of the semester you will acquire robust analytical and theoretical tools for understanding the political and ecological dimensions of racial capitalism and settler colonialism and learn how alternative social and ecological worlds might be generated and sustained.

GEOG 3377 - Music in the City (DSJ, AH)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Grading Basis:	A-F or Aud
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Why is music so central to the life of the city? Throughout the ages, throughout the world, music seems to have a special power to fill urban space with meaning. This is mostly why the music industry is always desperately trying to chase the new ways music is produced and consumed. Much about the rapid changes in the industry can be linked to changes taking place in the geography of cities and globalization. Through music, people feel connected to landscapes, neighborhoods, buildings, and identities. Music gives value to places, so helps cement us/them divisions, a process easily seen (heard) in national anthems. This course tries to understand how the interplay exactly occurs between sounds, places, and differences through case studies from many genres. The course makes use of a large range of media and learning styles. Themes include the transnational circuits of reggae, the class backgrounds of punk, Motown and civil rights, psychedelic counterculture, underground electronic music, and the ambivalent identities of Minneapolis's very own Prince.

GEOG 3388 - Going Places: Geographies of Travel and Tourism (CIV)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Grading Basis:	A-F only
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Are you wondering whether you will be able to travel as you did a few years ago? One of the largest industries, tourism is in a profound crisis. This course understands tourism in relation to other kinds of mobility, like shopping, colonialism, trafficking, migration, and pilgrimage. As the negative environmental and health impacts of tourism have become obvious, significant demands have emerged on its practices and policies. Investigating the landscapes and economies of cars, planes, beaches, parks, malls, and museums, we come to appreciate the unique challenges tourism poses for global citizenship and the planet. To gain a critical geographical understanding of mobility we engage a range of ethical frameworks such as human rights, feminism, social justice, and utilitarianism. Our final destination is an informed and critical ethics of travel in the age of pandemics and climate change.

GEOG 3401W - Geography of Environmental Systems and Global Change (ENV, WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3401W/5401W
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Geographic patterns, dynamics, and interactions of atmospheric, hydrospheric, geomorphic, pedologic, and biologic systems as context for human population, development, and resource use patterns.

GEOG 3411W - Geography of Health and Health Care (WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Typically offered:	Every Fall

Application of human ecology, spatial analysis, political economy, and other geographical approaches to analyze problems of health and health care. Topics include distribution and diffusion of disease; impact of environmental, demographic, and social change on health; distribution, accessibility, and utilization of health practitioners and facilities.

GEOG 3431 - Plant and Animal Geography

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3431/5431
Typically offered:	Periodic Fall & Spring

The landscape is shaped by complex interactions among plants, animals, and the physical environment. Where, when, and why different organisms live and interact where they do is influenced by myriad interacting forces. This course aims to provide an opportunity to investigate some specific patterns on the landscape by examining changes over time and space, and among communities comprised of multiple species assemblages. In this course, we will explore a variety of topics, depending on student interests and skills, that relate to biogeography and interactions among the landscape and people. We will examine the different factors that influence population change and examine species interactions, including concepts of keystone species, disturbance/landscape ecology, and species conservation approaches. Principally, we will complete readings and activities that touch on emerging issues in biogeography such as pathways to improving public land management, the incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into ecological restoration plans, wilderness and federal lands policy, and the increasing challenge of invasive species.

GEOG 3511 - Principles of Cartography

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3511/Geog 5511
Typically offered:	Every Fall

GEOG 3511/5511 is a basic introduction to cartography?the art, science, and technology of maps and map making. Our primary emphasis will be on map making, with lesser emphasis on cartographic research and the history of cartography. Lectures will focus on modern cartographic design principles, how they were developed, and how they might be changing. Lab assignments help develop skills using digital tools for producing effective maps. The course has several specific learning objectives: ? use software to create maps that communicate their subjects appropriately and effectively using sound cartographic design principles ? acquire or produce a base map that is appropriate in scale, projection, and generalization ? select and aggregate data appropriately to represent on a map using a suitable symbolization strategy ? gain an understanding of how current changes in technology impact maps and map making ? understand how fundamental design decisions might differ for printed maps and web/mobile maps ? understand how contemporary GIS and cartography are interrelated, including the use of GIS becoming ubiquitous and map making becoming increasingly available to anyone ? gain an appreciation for the 3,500+ year history of maps! prereq: 3 cr in geog or instr consent

GEOG 3531 - Numerical Spatial Analysis

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3531/5531
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Summer

"Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." The First Law of Geography proposed by Waldo Tobler implies the complex yet fascinating nature of the geospatial world. Spatial analysis in order to understand geographic numbers is becoming increasingly necessary to support knowledge discovery and decision-making. The objective of this course is to teach the fundamental theory and quantitative methods within the scope of geospatial analysis. The course starts with basic statistics, matrix, the background of spatial analysis, and exploratory spatial data analysis. Then, we will dive into the special nature of our spatial world, with fundamental geographic ideas and theories being introduced. The focus will be on numerical methods and models including descriptive statistics, pattern analysis, interpolation, and regression models. Finally, some advanced topics regarding spatial complexities and spatial networks will be introduced to arouse further interest in this realm. To sum, this is an introductory course that makes use of quantitative analytics such as linear algebra, statistics, and econometrics for spatial data analysis. By taking this course you will: -quantitatively understand critical concepts behind geospatial processes, such as scale, spatial weights, spatial autocorrelation, spatial dependence, spatial pattern. -learn key methods of analyzing spatial data: e.g., point pattern analysis, spatial autocorrelation statistics, spatial prediction, and spatial regression. -examine the lectured methods/models with data from geographic scenarios using Python and related programming packages. (Prereq: high-school algebra; Basic stats and linear algebra recommended)

GEOG 3561 - Principles of Geographic Information Science

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3561/ Geog 5561
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Spring

Introduction to study of geographic information systems (GIS) for geography and non-geography students. Topics include GIS application domains, data models and sources, analysis methods and output techniques. Lectures, readings and hands-on experience with GIS software. prereq: Jr or sr

GEOG 3839 - Introduction to Dendrochronology

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3839/Geog 5839
Typically offered:	Every Fall

Examination of past landscape histories are critical for assessing how environments change and identifying causal mechanisms. Tree-rings, the annual growth rings formed by trees growing in temperate regions, are an instrumental tool for elucidating changes over time. As biological entities, tree-rings are recorders of changes in their surroundings. The application of tree-rings to understand environmental change is called dendrochronology. Dendrochronology has played an important role in understanding past climates, disturbance regimes, and the history of Indigenous peoples (to name just a few applications). Its use has been critical to understanding pressing environmental issues such as 20th century global warming, the impacts of fire suppression on forested landscapes, the loss of the Black Forest in Europe (pollution), and the use/abandonment of archaeological sites (the Anasazi and Ojibwe). It is an exceedingly interesting analytical tool that has unique applications, but it isn?t as simple as counting the rings of trees to determine an age. In this course we will focus on the biology, theoretical principles, and operational techniques of dendrochronology and apply this knowledge toward understanding forest change. By the end of the course students will be able to conduct basic dendrochronological research and appreciate the advantages and limitations of this important tool. My aim is to expose you to the foundational science behind the field, provide you with some simple tools, and introduce you to the variety of applications to which tree-ring analysis can be applied by doing some dendrochronological research. We will apply the tools of dendrochronology toward understanding forest dynamics in a specific landscape to examine fire and tree growth patterns and the influence of climate and people on the forested environment. This course will be a mixture of lecture and hands-on data analysis. The primary approach for this course is the development of a group research project utilizing data that is either collected in the field for a specific purpose or the use of data that is already archived. prereq: [1403, [BIOL 1001 or BIOL 1009 or equiv]] or instr consent

GEOG 3900 - Topics in Geography

Credits:	3.0 [max 9.0]
Typically offered:	Periodic Fall & Spring

Special topics/regions covered by visiting professors in their research fields.

GEOG 3973 - Geography of the Twin Cities (SOCS)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 1973/3973
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Spring

The University of Minnesota sits in the middle of a fascinating city, and in this class you will explore parts of that city in-depth. You will learn about the human geography of the Twin Cities, how they have developed in the past, and how they are changing. You will examine the settlement, economic change, social practices, and political events that have shaped the Twin Cities, learning how to look at this place through multiple and contesting perspectives. Through a combination of in-depth field work, applied research, readings, and discussion, you will learn about urban concepts like immigration, Native populations, poverty, homelessness, segregation, redlining, suburbanization, shifts in retail and jobs, zoning, transit, metropolitan governance, urban renewal, and more. The goal is to foster your critical reflection on important, contemporary challenges facing our metropolitan region, and develop a new way to look at your present home.

GEOG 4001 - Modes of Geographic Inquiry

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Spring

Examination of competing approaches to the study of geography. Environmental determinism; regional tradition; scientific revolution; behavioral geography; modeling and quantitative geography; radical geography; interpretive and qualitative approaches; feminist and postmodern geography; ecological thinking and complexity; geographic ethics.

GEOG 4002W - Environmental Thought and Practice (WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Periodic Spring

Changing conceptions of nature, culture, and environment in Western social/political thought. How our understanding of humans/nonhumans has been transformed by scientific and technological practices. Interdisciplinary, reading intensive. prereq: Jr or sr

GEOG 5401W - Geography of Environmental Systems and Global Change (ENV, WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3401W/5401W
Typically offered:	Periodic Fall

Geographic patterns, dynamics, and interactions of atmospheric, hydrospheric, geomorphic, pedologic, and biologic systems as context for human population, development, and resource use patterns. prereq: grad student or instr consent

GEOG 5426 - Climatic Variations

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Periodic Fall

Theories of climatic fluctuations and change at decadal to centuries time scales; analysis of temporal and spatial fluctuations especially during the period of instrumental record. prereq: 1425 or 3401 or instr consent

GEOG 5511 - Principles of Cartography

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3511/Geog 5511
Typically offered:	Every Fall

GEOG 3511/5511 is a basic introduction to cartography?the art, science, and technology of maps and map making. Our primary emphasis will be on map making, with lesser emphasis on cartographic research and the history of cartography. Lectures will focus on modern cartographic design principles, how they were developed, and how they might be changing. Lab assignments help develop skills using digital tools for producing effective maps. The course has several specific learning objectives: ? use software to create maps that communicate their subjects appropriately and effectively using sound cartographic design principles ? acquire or produce a base map that is appropriate in scale, projection, and generalization ? select and aggregate data appropriately to represent on a map using a suitable symbolization strategy ? gain an understanding of how current changes in technology impact maps and map making ? understand how fundamental design decisions might differ for printed maps and web/mobile maps ? understand how contemporary GIS and cartography are interrelated, including the use of GIS becoming ubiquitous and map making becoming increasingly available to anyone ? gain an appreciation for the 3,500+ year history of maps!

GEOG 5531 - Numerical Spatial Analysis

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3531/5531
Typically offered:	Every Fall

Applied/theoretical aspects of geographical quantitative methods for spatial analysis. Emphasizes analysis of geographical data for spatial problem solving in human/physical areas.

GEOG 5561 - Principles of Geographic Information Science

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3561/ Geog 5561
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Spring

Introduction to the study of geographic information systems (GIS) for geography and non-geography students. Topics include GIS application domains, data models and sources, analysis methods and output techniques. Lectures, reading, and hands-on experience with GIS software. prereq: grad

GEOG 5563 - Advanced Geographic Information Science

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Every Fall & Spring

Advanced study of geographic information systems (GIS). Topics include spatial data models, topology, data encoding, data quality, database management, spatial analysis tools and visualization techniques. Hands-on experience using an advanced vector GIS package. prereq: B or better in 3561 or 5561 or instr consent

GEOG 5564 - Urban Geographic Information Science and Analysis

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Typically offered:	Periodic Fall

Core concepts in urban geographic information science including sources for urban geographical and attribute data (including census data), urban data structures (focusing on the TIGER data structure), urban spatial analyses (including location-allocation models), geodemographic analysis, network analysis, and the display of urban data. prereq: 3561 or 5561

GEOG 3145 - The Islamic World (SOCS, GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3145/GloS 3645/RelS 3711
Typically offered:	Every Fall

The Islamic World is an overarching course on the Muslim world that addresses the following intellectual concerns: 1. Islam and its contribution to the emergence of the modern world 2. Medieval Muslim civilization and their contribution to human culture 3. The relationship between Islam and gender roles in different Muslim cultures 4. The Muslim community?s struggle against colonialism and post-colonialism 5. Islam?s role in the struggle for Democracy and Development in the Muslim World 6. The relationships between Islam and the environment 7. The relationships between Islam and human rights 8. The relations between the West?s war on terror and the terror of War in the Muslim World

RELS 3711 - The Islamic World (SOCS, GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3145/GloS 3645/RelS 3711
Typically offered:	Every Fall

The Islamic World is an overarching course on the Muslim world that addresses the following intellectual concerns: 1. Islam and its contribution to the emergence of the modern world 2. Medieval Muslim civilization and their contribution to human culture 3. The relationship between Islam and gender roles in different Muslim cultures 4. The Muslim community?s struggle against colonialism and post-colonialism 5. Islam?s role in the struggle for Democracy and Development in the Muslim World 6. The relationships between Islam and the environment 7. The relationships between Islam and human rights 8. The relations between the West?s war on terror and the terror of War in the Muslim World

GEOG 3161 - Europe: A Geographic Perspective (GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3161/GLoS 3921
Typically offered:	Fall Even Year

It is impossible to think about the contemporary world without the lasting impact Europe has had on it. But what are the deeper reasons for Europe to emerge as a dominant region from the late Middle Ages onwards? Why has Europe recently found itself in profound economic and political, even existential crisis? Historical geography provides answers. Divided by landscape, language, religion, and war, European empires imposed the state-form, capitalism, and their cultures on the rest of the world. European societies even became the supposed standard for how all humanity is meant to live. But there have always been cracks in this success story. The project of the European Union promised peace and prosperity for half a billion people but faces unprecedented challenges, from Brexit, the Ukraine war, and the return of state racism to climate change and covid. This course will guide you through Europe?s general historical characteristics to understand how it shaped globalization.

GEOG 3331 - Geography of the World Economy (SOCS, GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3331/GloS 3231
Typically offered:	Every Fall

An invisible, not-quite-dead, not-quite-alive entity?the coronavirus?forced us, rudely and tragically, to reckon with space. As we try and maintain social distance from other bodies, wear masks to disrupt the virus? pathways of diffusion, confront shortages in grocery stores, home supply outlets, and car dealerships, adjust to interruptions in many services, and either choose to, or are forced to stay at home, in our cities, in our countries, we are thinking and acting spatially. And we are reminded that ?stuff??food, medicines, toilet paper?reaches us often through geographically extensive and logistically intricate webs of economic production and distribution. We will learn what it means to think geographically about the capitalist economy as a spatial, relational formation. In doing so, we will challenge dominant ways of understanding and analyzing the economy, and of what counts as economic. We will also examine two simultaneous aspects of the world economy?fixity and flow. On the one hand, the economy propels and is propelled by flows?of goods, of services, of people, of labor, and of finance. On the other hand, physical infrastructures are rooted in place on the earth. After all, even the digital worlds of Facebook, Google, and Amazon are enabled by vast server farms. The course will also highlight the production and proliferation of inequalities?between social groups, states, countries, and regions?in and by the world economy. In fact, we will ask: Is economic unevenness a mere byproduct of capitalist economic growth, or the condition of possibility for it? Finally, we will discuss the relationships between global phenomena and local events. Crises like global climate change, overflows of waste matter, COVID19, and the 2008 financial meltdown make it clear that the global and the local are intimately entangled. Not only do global events impact individual livelihoods, including yours and mine, but economic jitters in one place can escalate, sending shockwaves across the world.

GLOS 3231 - Geography of the World Economy (SOCS, GP)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3331/GloS 3231
Typically offered:	Every Fall

Geographical distribution of resources affecting development. Location of agriculture, industry, services. Agglomeration of economic activities, urbanization, regional growth. International trade. Changing global development inequalities. Impact on nations, regions, cities.

GEOG 3374W - The City in Film (AH, WI)

Credits:	4.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3374W/3374V/5374W
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Cinematic portrayal of changes in 20th-century cities worldwide including social and cultural conflict, political and economic processes, changing gender relationships, rural versus urban areas, and population and development issues (especially as they affect women and children).

GEOG 3379 - Environment and Development in the Third World (SOCS, ENV)

Credits:	3.0 [max 3.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3379/GloS 3303
Grading Basis:	A-F or Aud
Typically offered:	Every Spring

Inequality in the form of extreme wealth and poverty in our world are major causes of environmental degradation. In addition, development failure as well as certain forms of economic growth always led to environment disasters. This course examines how our world?s economic and political systems and the livelihoods they engender have produced catastrophic local and global environmental conditions. Beyond this, the course explores alternative approaches of achieving sustainable environment and equitable development. prereq: Soph or jr or sr

GEOG 3381W - Population in an Interacting World (SOCS, GP, WI)

Credits:	3.0 [max 4.0]
Course Equivalencies:	Geog 3381W/GLOS 3701W
Typically offered:	Every Fall, Spring & Summer

Comparative analysis and explanation of trends in fertility, mortality, internal and international migration in different parts of the world; world population problems; population policies; theories of population growth; impact of population growth on food supply and the environment.

University Catalogs

Geography Minor