Week 8 — Geodesy, Projections, and Coordinate Systems

Presentation Slides

• Tuesday — Geodesy, Projections, and Coordinate Systems — The shape of the Earth: geoid, ellipsoid, datums; Map projections and distortion; Geographic vs. projected coordinate systems; UTM and state plane

Press F for fullscreen and P for presenter view with speaker notes.

Materials: XKCD on projections · The True Size · Projection transitions (Jason Davies)

In-Class Practice

• Tuesday — Globe Activity: The Great Circle (not graded).

Hands-On Practice

Playing with Projections

This session has its own step-by-step guide: what you need, an overview, the click-by-click QGIS walkthrough, what to hand in, and the snags that usually come up.

Open the Week 8 hands-on guide →

Self-check quizzes — not graded; open them on a phone or laptop as often as you like:

• Why Is Greenland So Big? — What every flat map gives up, how a projection is fitted to the ground, and the difference between declaring a CRS and reprojecting into one.

Lab Assignment

Lab 7 — Projections and Coordinate Systems

Due Saturday at 11:59 pm on Learning Suite.

Reading Quiz

This week's reading: GIS Fundamentals, Chapter 3 (Geodesy, Datums, Map Projections, and Coordinate Systems).

Quiz 6 — Map Projections and Coordinate Systems on Learning Suite: open book. Due Saturday at 11:59 pm. See Reading Quizzes.

Note

If you see a discrepancy between Learning Suite and this page, please let us know so we can rectify it.

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Version 2026.10.1 · Last updated October 15, 2026