📖Introduction to GIS for Social Sciences
Instructor: Emerson Baptista📁
The course is divided into two parts:
Part I: An introduction to the use of maps and spatial data applied to the social sciences, with emphasis on learning basic map making skills. Students will learn how to create thematic maps gaining hands-on experience with ArcGIS mapping software including: the basic geographic conventions for mapmaking, map projections, variable classification, overlays (e.g., census data with schools or roads) and manipulating layouts to make compelling maps. Students will learn how to import, edit, and export data.
Part II: Students will refine their skills to include: learn many types of geoprocessing operations to create or modify data (e.g., dissolving or clipping features) and calculate new variables with spatial queries (e.g., distances or buffers). Students will learn how to create point (x-y) data and centroids, calculate distances, and geocode data from addresses.
📖Anthropology of Disasters
Instructor: Chen Chen📁
Every year, thousands of people die in disasters, millions are displaced, and billions of dollars are lost in damages. Are disasters natural? How does culture shape the experience and actions of victims, volunteers, and response agencies? Through investigating the perspectives and experiences of survivors and of the staff members at NGOs and governmental agencies, including as reflected in ethnographies, oral histories and films, this course aims at understanding how risk perception and disaster response are interacting with contemporary politics, economic trends, gender and ethnic relations, technological advancement, climate change and globalization. In this course, you will be expected to do reading, participate in class discussions and presentations, complete homework assignments, and turn in the final paper. Classes will include lecture, discussion of readings, and student presentations.
📖Seminar of Sociology (Global Demographic Challenges)
Instructor: Guillaume Marois📁
The first three classes will provide to the student the basic demographic knowledge to understand population challenges, including how interpreting quantitative figures and tables, and what population forecasting can do. Some examples of calculation of demographic indicators, will be provided by the teacher. The next four classes will cover different regions of the world with their specific demographic challenges and their main consequences. Using examples from different population forecasts, we will see how current and past demographic behaviors might influence the future. Although the student will not perform calculation by himself, examples in Excel will be provided by the teacher to help in the understanding of the demographic dynamic. The last three classes will be seminars in which students will present a short communication about population challenges for a country or a region of their choice. They will have the opportunity to get comments from the teacher and their colleagues for their 2000 words essay on the same topic.
Most classes will include both magistral teaching and practical participative activities which will count as part of the final grade. Courses will be taught in English. The course includes some exercises with Excel in class. Students thus need to have Excel or an equivalent software (such as Apache OpenOffice Calc) installed on their laptop.