ENV 859 - Geospatial Data Analytics   |   Fall 2026   |   Instructor: John Fay
Topic Date In class... On your own...
0. Course Intro Aug-24 Course Intro & Setup Course Survey
Activate Slack Account
VM Setup
1.0 Section 1 intro
1.1 Workspace Setup
1. Adv. Geoprocessing Aug-26 Tech roundup 1.2 Workflow to Tool
Q&A Adv Geoprocessing 1.0-1.1 1.3 Conditional Processing
Open Lab: Create workflow
Aug-31 Section 1 Q&A 1.4 User Interactivity
Assignment 1 Intro 1.5 Documenting & Sharing
Sep-02 Open Lab - Problem Set 1 ✅️ Assignment 1
2.1 Introducing Python
Sep-07 ~Labor Day~ 2.2 Navigating Jupyter Notebooks
2.3 Getting Started with Python
2. Intro to Python Sep-09 Q&A 2.1-2.2 2.4 Data Structures
-Exercises
Sep-14 Q&A 2.5 2.5 Flow Control
- Exercises
Sep-16 Q&A 2.6 ✅️Assignment 2
- Exercises
3. Writing Python Scripts Sep-21 3.1 Writing Python Scripts (Intro) 3.4 Scripting project
3.2 Setting up VS Code 3.4.1 Workspace set up
3.3 Using GitHub & Git 3.4.2 Parse one line of data
Sep-23 Q&A 3.1-3.4.2 3.4.3 Read data into your script
Exercise: Python's file object 3.4.4a For loops
Open Lab 3.4.4b While loops
✅️ Assignment 3, Part 1
Sep-28 Q&A 3.4.3-3.4.4 3.4.5 Create data dictionaries
Git reverts 3.4.6 Filter data added to dictionaries
Open Lab 3.4.7 Query dictionaries
✅️ Assignment 3, Part 2
Oct-30 Q&A 3.4.5-3.4.7 ✅️ Assignment 3
3.4.8 Handling Errors 4.2 Python & GIS Intro
4. Python & GIS Oct-05 4.1 Intro to ArcPy 4.2.1 - Running ArcGIS tools in Python
Demo: Extending Python 4.2.2 - ArcPy Functions
Demo: Conda environments 4.2.3 - ArcPy Classes
Demo: Running ArcPro tools in Python 4.2.4 - ArcPy Environment Settings
Oct-07 Q&A Using ArcPy (4.2.1-4) 4.2.5- Script Inputs
Open Lab: ArcPy 4.2.5-4.2.9 4.2.6 - ArcGIS Script Tools
4.2.7 - Describing data with ArcPy
Oct-12 * F A L L B R E A K *
Oct-14 Q&A Using ArcPy 4.2.5-7 4.2.8 - Data access with Cursors
4.2.9 - Working with Geometry Objects
Oct-19 Q&A Using ArcPy 4.2.8-9 4.3 Geoprocessing workflows
4.3 Geoprocessing workflows (intro) 4.3.1 Prep for notebook task
4.3.2 Notebook Initialization
4.3.3 Import Packages
4.3.4 Subset Points w/Select Tool
Oct-21 → Guest: Elise Boos 4.3.5 Streamline the Select tool
•Q&A 4.3.5-4.3.7 4.3.6 Continue the workflow
4.3.7 View outputs [optional]
Oct-26 → Guest: Michael Gaffney ✅️ Assignment 4
Q&A 4.3.5 - 4.3.7
Oct-28 DEMO: Automating Workflows 5.0 Data Science - Section Overview
5.1 Intro to Data Science
5. Spatial Data Science Nov-02 Discussion: Data Science Workflow 5.3 Pandas and the Dataframe
Open Lab: 5.2 Numpy 5.3.1 Reading data
5.3.2 Dataframe properties & summaries
5.3.3 Indexing & slicing
Nov-04 → Guest: Kara Grosse 5.3.4 Grouping
Q&A 5.3.1 - 5.3.3 5.3.5 Joining dataframes
Pandas exercises I 5.3.6 Transforming data
Nov-09 Q&A 5.3.4 - 5.3.7 5.4 Geopandas & the GeoDataframe
Pandas exercises II 5.4.1 Creating geodataframes
5.4.2 Projections and transformations
Nov-11 →Guest: Ryan O'Banion 5.4.3 Spatial selection
Q&A 5.3.4 - 5.3.2 5.4.4 Spatial aggregation
Geopandas exercises 5.4.5 Spatial joins
Nov-16 Q&A 5.3.4 - 5.3.2 5.4 Data Visualization
Geopandas exercises 5.4.1 Anatomy of a plot
5.4.2 The grammer of graphics
5.4.3 Maps
Nov-18 TBD
6. Projects & Demos Nov-23 Course Wrap up