Table 2. A topical overview of The Geographer's Craft modules. Ten modules are being developed in the first two years of the initiative so that the modules can be rotated on an annual basis, two or three used per semester. Additional modules will be developed later.

The Geographer's Craft I

  1. The Texas Campaign Trail. Using election returns for the last three state and national elections, students consider the spatial dynamics of Texas' changing electoral geography and develop a campaign strategy for a Republican challenger to Democratic Governor Ann Richards for the 1994 election.
  2. Roman Conquest of Britain. In a small study area in south-central England, students will examine the correlation between Roman and Pre-Roman occupation based on exising archeological surveys, soils, elevation, and drainage to compare the ecological zones preferred in the frontier contact between two groups with different agricultural technologies.
  3. Environment and Urbanization: The Micro-Hydrology of an Urban Watershed. Students will engage in a field survey of a small watershed in Austin, Texas, to assess the effects of urbanization on erosion, water flow, and sedimentation. In particular, students will consider the affect of "machine space" on the quality of urban life.
  4. Deforestation in Costa Rica. Using air photographs and satellite imagery dating back up to forty years, students will map deforestation in a small area of Costa Rica and consider the factors influencing the rapid change in land use to gain an appreciation of the ecological consequences of economic development.
  5. The International AIDS Epidemic. Using WHO and CDC statistics, students will map and analyze the spatial and temporal spread of AIDS and consider the epidemiological dynamics of this process.

The Geographer's Craft II

  1. Emergency Medical Services in Exurbia. Using locational algorithms, students will consider the practical problems of siting an efficient and equitable system of emergency medical services in the exurban corridor between Austin and San Antonio.
  2. The Fall of the Anasazi. This exercise will consider the relationship between water availability and carrying capacity in one small area in New Mexico excavated by University of Texas archeologists to gauge how climatic change may have affected agricultural production and settlement geography.
  3. Friedrich Engels' London: St. Giles Parish in 1892. Students will "reconstruct" St. Giles parish using Charles Booth's Labour and Life of the People, Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England, and other original materials to see how the perception of poverty matched reality in the nineteenth-century industrial city.
  4. Endangered Habitats, Endangered Species. Students will consider habitats critical to the migratory range of certain New World shorebirds and will develop a cumulative habitat assessment model of habitat disturbance.
  5. Exploring Perceptual Space: Campus Safety. Students will use surveys to explore and map the world of non-metric perceptual space to consider how gender and other demographic characteristics influence perceptions of environmental safety and danger.