Tony Soeller teaches this GIS course for undergraduates each year at UC Irvine. During my two quarters as a TA, I helped students apply GIS to questions related to Earth System Science.
Some of the students produced work of exceptional quality considering their level of training.
One class project was to use GIS to map the grass health and soil temperature and moisture at Aldrich park at UCI.
See Student Report: Matt K
Matt also applied ArcGIS to calculate the effects of the southern california wildfires on CO2 release from these ecosystems.
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