Computer Science and Programming Courses in Geography Departments in the United States

Teaching on Jupyter

“…Based on our own experience, we felt that shoe horning exposure to 'computational geography' into a single module -as seems to occur in many American programmes (Bowlick et al 2017) -would only reinforce student aversion to such approaches, so we opted to 'unpack' the concepts across three modules: These modules must be taken in sequence, the preceding module acting as a pre-requisite for admission to the next, although students are free to exit the sequence at any time. We also provide an optional 'Code Camp' to be undertaken over the summer before the first module begins so that students begin the term familiar with basic concepts: variables, lists/arrays, dictionaries/hashes, and functions/subroutines, provided they have done the work.…”

“…We should note that, in the absence of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), students are unlikely to benefit from test suites and other tools that support developer best-practice. However, such an approach can also have the effect of deterring new students by pushing back the point at which they appear to be achieving anything concrete: "Because learning in computer science and programming is challenged by numerous barriers, students need to be motivated about the purpose, value, and utility of concepts within course work" (Bowlick et al 2017) So while knowledge of professional tools and practices is desirable, we nonetheless feel that these kinds of ideas and issues are best tackled when students have progressed further with their studies and are motivated to tackle more abstract challenges.…”

“…And while the issue may be particularly acute for students in the U.K. (Johnston et al 2014), even in more technically-oriented countries there is often not much more on offer than a straightforward 'GIS course' (Wikle, Fagin 2014). Consequently, students progressing to higher levels of study or the professional realm often find that 'the skills least developed in undergraduate GIS courses are those related to programming and computer science' (Bowlick et al 2017).…”

Quantitative Geography III: Future Challenges & Challenging Futures

“…This concern is still with us. Programming in GIScience instruction is on the rise (Etherington 2016;Bowlick et al 2017;Arribas-Bel 2019), underwritten by high-quality spatial analysis libraries (Rey and Anselin 2007;Bivand et al 2011) and pedagogy treating "code as text" (Rey 2009(Rey , 2018. This has resulted in community-led scientific infrastructure (Wolf, Rey, and Oshan 2019) where international teams contribute to a shared body of implemented knowledge.…”

Computer programming with Python for industrial and systems engineers: Perspectives from an instructor and students

“…As computers are being increasingly used in a variety of engineering and science disciplines , computer programming has become an important skill that is highly desired by employers. It is important for engineering students to learn how to program and gain a fundamental understanding of computing.…”