Geographic Information Systems

Accessing GIS on campus

Macalester has a GIS Site License!

This means that ArcGIS Pro is installed and ready to use on all windows computers across campus. All students, faculty, and staff can access the full suite of GIS resources by creating an ArcGIS Organizational Account using their Macalester login. GIS Site License Information

GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems. GIS can be defined as “a computer-based system to aid in the collection, maintenance, storage, analysis, output, and distribution of spatial data and information” — GIS Fundamentals: A First Text on Geographic Information Systems (Bolstad, 2005). It has also been defined as “a set of computer tools that allows people to work with data that are tied to a particular location on the earth” (i.e. spatial data)” — Mastering ArcGIS, (Price, 2006). There are a wide variety of applications for GIS. Some topics that have been researched in our department using GIS include tracking foreclosures in North Minneapolis, determining where the gaps are in after-school programs for K-12 students in the City of Saint Paul, finding spatial patterns of health care access for African immigrants, analyzing the spatial pattern of Lyme disease in Minnesota, determining the lack of affordable housing in Ramsey County, analyzing physical aspect of the Crow River Watershed, among many others.

Remote Sensing @ Mac

Remote Sensing (RS) is the science of acquiring information about the Earth’s surface without actual contact with the object or area being analyzed. 

Learn here about details of RS at Mac including current course offerings and students’ research projects.

View their collaborative work with students

The GIS teaching lab is located in Carnegie 108. It is a lab dedicated to teaching GIS courses within the Geography Department.

Students who are interested in working on independent projects and who are not Geography majors may use computers in the library that have the software. They are located in the Imaging Annex on the lower level and in the main computer lab on the PCs only. For more information about GIS on the Macalester campus.