Welcome to the National Park Service ArcView GIS On-Line Course . Divided into ten sections, this course introduces the basics of ArcView GIS. Each section presents theoretical concepts describing Geographic Information Systems. Most sections are accompanied by an assignment that enables the user to apply the concepts previously learned. With all software, it is recommended you use the on-line help as much as possible and go beyond the steps presented in the course. This will help you learn the software much better than just "pressing the buttons." At the end of the course the you should be able to query spatial information, create thematic maps and develop ArcView projects to aid in natural and cultural resource management. For example, after the GIS specialist at Fort McHenry NM & HS completed the course, he created an ArcView GIS project for archeological studies and facilities management that is in widespread use at the park. In addition, the GIS specialist at Joshua Tree NP created several projects for fire history and rock climbing locations that are used by park dispatchers for several applications ranging from resource management to search and rescue operations.
If you have questions about a particular function, you should contact your park's GIS coordinator / specialist or Regional GIS coordinator.
In order to work through this course you will need to have ArcView GIS 3.1 or a later version already installed on your computer. You will also need an "uncompress file utility" installed on your computer in order to uncompress the data files needed to complete the exercises. The project files created for this course were created for ArcView 3.1. Therefore, if you are using ArcView 3.2, you may get a statement indicating the project file was created in a different version of ArcView. Simply click the OK button. This will not cause any problems in the course.
1. Introduction to ArcView
2. Making A Basic Map (Layout) with ArcView
3. Manipulating Spatial Displays in ArcView
4. Manipulating Tabular Displays in ArcView
5. Creating a Project in ArcView
6. Thematic Mapping with ArcView
7. Integrating Image Data and Heads-Up Digitizing
8. ArcView Application Scenario
9. Using the Spatial Analyst Module
10. Getting GIS Info., Data, & Help via The WWWYou may download all the training data here or download the data as you need it. Links to download individual data sets are found throughout the web pages.
Download all the assignment data (21.8 MB). Be sure to preserve the directory structure!