Facilities
The Department of Geography provides students and faculty with a wide range of facilities and equipment to support course work, student and faculty research, and the production of maps used for teaching and publication. Our facilities include:
- A fully-equipped multi-faceted cartography laboratory.
- A Geography classroom with state-of-the-art audio-visual facilities, computer equipment, and maps.
- An extensive collection of maps and remotely sensed imagery.
- Laboratory equipment for teaching physical geography, geographic techniques, and field methods.
The Cartography Laboratory
For geography majors, the Cartography Laboratory (Monroe Hall 305) is the heart of the department. It is the place where students complete coursework in geographic methods, cartography, physical geography, and other laboratory classes. Students also use the lab as a meeting place for study groups, to plan off-campus activities, and simply to catch up with faculty and colleagues.
In
the Cartography Laboratory students get valuable hands-on experience
in air photo interpretation, remote sensing, and geographic information
science (GIS) as well as in the principles of mapmaking. Sixteen Windows
2000 workstations running the latest versions of ESRI's ArcView GIS,
Spatial Analyst, and Image Analyst software support classes in GIS,
remote sensing, and geographic methods, and cartography. These machines
also have a variety of other graphic arts and web design software. Additionally,
the laboratory's 42 inch Hewlett Packard 500ps plotter allows students
and faculty to print professional quality, high resolution, full color
maps and images.
The Cartography Laboratory regularly produces maps to support MWC faculty research and teaching. In addition to the base maps the Geography Department maintains online, geography students and faculty can make maps for more specialized needs.
In the Spring 2002 semester, seven geography majors completed work on 9' by 3' map of Fredericksburg's 19th Century industrial canal system and mill sites. The map is on display at the Fredericksburg Area Museum as part of an exhibit on the City's industrial history. Other maps produced in MWC's cartography lab have appeared in books published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, Rowman and Littlefield, and Garland Publishers.
For more information please contact Dr. Stephen Hanna (shanna@umw.edu).
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