You are here: CSU, Chico | Geography and Planning | Our Department

Our Department

Mission Statement

The Geography and Planning Department is committed to preparing students to effectively participate in our rapidly changing world by engaging them in the exploration of the social, environmental, and technical forces that shape our planet's future. Through effective teaching, advising, and research, our goal is to give students geographic insight into the relationship among human societies and the physical world at different scales.

Learning Goals

Goal 1: Demonstrate technological capabilities related to geographic data interpretation and their spatial representation.
  1. Students can formulate geographic research questions.
  2. Students can collect, compile, and interpret geographic data.
  3. Students can present geographic data in a map.
Goal 2: Demonstrate an awareness of global, regional, and local scales of the physical and social worlds.
  1. Students can recognize the presence and application of regional, local, and global dimensions of the social and physical worlds in the landscape.
  2. Students can recognize the presence and application of regional, local, and global dimensions of the social and physical worlds in data.
Goal 3: Demonstrate an awareness of environmental variation, human-environmental interaction, and environmental values.
  1. Students can explain interactions between the size and distribution of human and non-human populations, resources, and the natural environment in historic and contemporary perspectives.
  2. Students are cognizant of varying interpretations of causality, interaction, policy, and values in human-environmental relationships.
  3. Student will understand ways in which they use the environment can affect future generations and other human and natural systems.
Goal 4: Demonstrate an awareness of and appreciation for the interdisciplinary nature of geography.
  1. Students can analyze information from different physical or social sciences from a geographic perspective.
  2. Students can interpret popular media (novels, films, newspapers) from a geographic perspective.
Goal 5: Demonstrate commitment to experiential learning and service to the community.
  1. Students provide appropriate geographic skills to community-based organizations and associations.
Goal 6: Demonstrate proficiency in written and spoken communication.
  1. Students can use and cite scholarly sources of information correctly.
  2. Students can write and speak clearly in the discipline of geography.

Facilities

The HUB

The student computer lab contains 25 new Dell workstations, LCD displays, and are running XP Professional. All workstations have T2 Internet and campus WAN. This state-of-the-art lab is continuing to grow. We are always adding new software packages in support of our techniques-based classes.

Software Output Devices Field Equipment HUB Lab Hours Spring 2011 (Word)

ArcGIS 10
ArcInfo
ArcView 3.3

 Wacom 21" Cintiq display

Trimble GeoXM w/Pathfinder

Trimble Juno SB (10 Units)
Adobe Creative Suite with Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, DreamWeaver, Photoshop HP 4250 Duplex black and white printer Nikon Coolpix 7600 digital camera

PCI Geomatics

PCI ENVI 5

 HP 800 color plotter (up to 42" wide) Increment tree borers  (HUB full Equipment List)
Google Earth Color scanner Clinometers  (HUB Equipment Checkout)
Surfer 8
 35mm slide scanner Densiometers

SPSS

R Package

 Color laser printer (to 11"x17") Garmin Vista eTrex GPS (20 units)

Meriam Library Map Repository

An extensive map collection is located in Special Collections on the fourth floor of the University's main library. It is open to the public.

Geography and Planning Equipment

The department provides field equipment and electronic devices for checkout by students and faculty.