Facilities

Part of being a premier program is ensuring that the facilities and access to the best resources are available to our students and researchers.

The Department of Geography occupies a historic building in Derby Hall and enjoys innovative spaces that are significant points of pride for our programs, including:

• The Geography Instructional Laboratory, is a state-of-the-art 50 workstation lab, enabling students to complete assigned GIS, spatial analysis projects and using the most up-to-date GIS software. This lab also serves our Climate and Atmospheric Science students with climatic/meteorology courses, giving students experience in interpreting data for weather classes, and providing access to our Twister weather data web site.
• The GIS Laboratory, a 20 workstation facility, giving graduate students a separate area for research and computer use.
• The Integrated Paleoenvironmental Laboratory, where equipment and workspace is devoted to recreating climate data from lake core samples.
• Undergraduate Resource Room, provides a fully equipped facility for Geography and Atmospheric Science major undergraduates to hang out and study. This is where the undergraduate Meteorology Club and Geography Club have their gathering place.
• The Department has a 60 seat lecture hall and two 25 seat class/meeting rooms equipped with the latest A/V setup including touch screen controls, available GB networked PC workstation, Blue-Ray player, laptop hookup hdmi/vga, HD projection and cameras for connecting the outside world with us.
• The Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA), which partners with Geography researchers to conduct research on urban and regional issues, contributes expertise to analysis at the city, state, regional, national, and international scales.

Strategic Affiliations

Beyond our immediate facilities, we have strategic affiliations with the following organizations and facilities that further enhance the learning experience of Geography students as well as those from other disciplines.

• Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University is recognized internationally as a leader in polar and alpine research. Research at the Center focuses on the role of cold regions in the Earth's overall climate system, and encompasses geological sciences, geochemistry, glaciology, paleoclimatology, meteorology, remote sensing, ocean dynamics, and the history of polar exploration. Research initiated by the Center is conducted throughout the world.
• The Climate, Water, and Carbon Program (CWC) is a collaboration of scientists and policy researchers from a variety of research fields at The Ohio State University dedicated to the study of abrupt global climate change and related impacts.
• Initiative in Population Research, housed at Ohio State, exists to cultivate an active and innovative research and training program centered on population studies and health, including a focus on children, youth and families.
• The OSU Center for Latin American Studies. (CLAS) works to bring awareness of Latin American counties, their issues and the increasing linkages to the United States. CLAS also works to foster high-quality research opportunities for graduate and faculty researchers.
• Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Geography’s work in Urban, Regional and Global Studies as well as Environment and Society specializations aligns with the mission and goals of the Kirwan Institute, which exists to contribute meaningfully to the field of research and scholarship on race, ethnicity and social justice issues.