Hi everyone, my name is Colleen Woods and I'm an associate professor of history at the university of Maryland. I'm taking this course because I've always wanted to learn the basics of ArcGIS so that I could (potentially) incorporate some aspects into my research and teaching. 3 words that come to mind when I hear the word geography are: history, climate change, and land. I picked history because I'm interested in the ways that geographic categories or designations (such as Southeast Asia) are products of human history. I picked climate change because doing research in Manila taught me how much typhoons, low-lying land, and flooding can shape daily life in increasingly troublesome ways. And finally I picked land because I'm interested in the ways that human beings make meaning out the lands they live on--and meanings that are often shaped or interact with geographic features.
Welcome! I've found that GIS and history go really well together. Though I teach much younger students, it was great to hear the "Ohhhhh!" when they could actually "see" the data.
Welcome Colleen - What courses do you teach at Maryland? Here is a basemap we developed to help teach American involvement in Southeast Asia. Perhaps the map it layers are useful to you.