Teaching, advising, and mentoring students are fundamental to my role as a scholar/educator. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of GIScience, human dimensions of environmental change, and water governance. In my teaching, I try to focus on the connections among human-environmental issues, methods, and policy-relevant solutions.
My teaching philosophy is centered around collaboration, critical problem solving, and adaptive self-reflection. Below are the courses I’m regularly offering at UNL and a list of courses I’ve taught at some point. In some cases, I provide links to syllabi or GitHub pages (if relevant) - but feel free to contact me at patrick.bitterman@unl.edu for more information.
Undergraduate courses:
Global Environmental Issues (GEOG 181) | Syllabus link
This introductory course explores leading global environmental issues of our time, particularly those associated with land use, population change, pollution, energy, and climate change. Though focused on the geographic implications of those issues, this course adopts an interdisciplinary perspective that emphasizes the causes, consequences, and solutions of/to these issues. The major course goals are to: 1) explore urgent global environmental issues and their relationships with physical, social, biological, and economic processes; 2) investigate potential linkages between those issues; and 3) introduce students to basic geographic concepts and methods in the context of current environmental problems.
Principles of GIS (GEOG 217) | Syllabus link
This course introduces the theories and methods of Geographic Information Science (GIScience) and Geographic Information Systems (GISystems). The lectures will provide spatial thinking and analysis skills, as well as the fundamental basic knowledge and theory needed to use GISystems effectively, accurately, and ethically. The topics covered in this course will include, but are not limited to, geodesy, cartography and geovisualization, map projections, geospatial data collection, GPS, spatial data models, spatial databases, and spatial analysis. The course also includes lectures weekly lab sessions. Labs build on the concepts learned in lecture by applying increasingly complex geoprocessing techniques, and offer students opportunities to familiarize yourself with the software while interacting with other students.
Graduate-level courses (some are open to undergraduates):
Programming, Scripting, and Automation for GIS (GEOG 432/832) | GitHub link
This course teaches programming and scripting to automate and standardize geospatial analysis and data management. The fundamentals of scripting and object-oriented programming using the Python programming language are taught. This course teaches students to design clearly structured programs and introduces the ArcPy library to access ArcGIS geoprocessing tools, as well as utilizing open source tools. Students develop algorithms and programs to edit, query, manipulate, and analyze spatial data. Students also generate graphical output (maps and other plots) and create reproducible workflows. Students integrate these methods with ArcGIS and the Python programming language.
R for Spatial Analysis (Special topics, GEOG 491/891) | GitHub link
This is a special topics course focused on spatial analysis using open source tools grounded in the R programming language. This is a project-based, student-led course that explores how to implement GIScience concepts, theories, and methods using R and R-based tools. Students develop algorithms and tools to edit, query, manipulate, visualize and analyze spatial data. Students create static and dynamic visualizations to communicate their findings. Students also develop a public-facing portfolio documenting their learning and course outputs to communicate their skills to potential mentors, employers, and the public.
Past (or irregularly offered) courses
Spatial Dimensions of Decision-Making in Social-Ecological Systems (graduate seminar) | Syllabus link
Proseminar in Research and Professional Development | Syllabus link
Advanced GIS (GEOG 422/822) | Syllabus link
Systems Dynamics and Strategic Management for Community Resilience (PA 317) | Syllabus link