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First Nation Applied Lands Management
Learn about surveying, mapping, boundary principles and land use planning. The final course is a project that applies the skills you learn to an issue in your community.
You will be prepared to help positively influence decision-making in your community, be a central resource in your community for lands housing, infrastructure, and provide critical support to land managers to deliver services.
All courses are tailored to the environments of the First Nation communities of the students.
Learning outcomes
Graduates will be able to help conduct surveying, mapping and planning in First Nation communities. That capacity will allow graduates to:
- Provide essential geospatial support to land managers (or staff who work with land managers).
- Support professional practitioners in First Nation communities, in institutions such as Tribal Councils or in neighbouring communities to deliver services such as topographic surveys, staking, fencing, housing, and grading.
- Collect spatial data for mapping, land use planning, flooding/disaster management, emergency vehicle routing and spatial infrastructure inventories, allowing geospatial data to positively influence decision making.
- Understand, support and advocate for the use of geospatial tools in the community.
- Provide a central resource for lands, housing, infrastructure, and environment within a First Nation community.
- Work as part of a team on legal surveys in the community or on provincial lands.
Admission requirements
By recommendation from the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics.
Program content
APNR 1010 Data Capture 1 (3,0,0) APNR 1010 Data Capture 1 (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits During this course students are introduced to observational methods for data capture using surveying equipment. Data capture fundamentals remain regardless of the rapid technological advances in data capturing equipment, acquisition and processing procedures.
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APNR 1020 Introduction to Digital Mapping 1 (3,0,0,) APNR 1020 Introduction to Digital Mapping 1 (3,0,0,)Credits: 3 credits This course offers an introduction to managing and processing geographic information in a digital world with a focus on Indigenous communities (i.e. Reserves). Emphasis will be placed on the nature of geographic information in a digital environment, types of spatial data, coordinate systems, datums, map projections, and performing basic functions in a Geographic Information System (GIS).
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APNR 1030 Land Use Planning I: Environmental Assessment (3,0,0) APNR 1030 Land Use Planning I: Environmental Assessment (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits This course offers an introduction to assessing environmental systems on the land, and identifying potential effects of human activities and developments on environmental media (air, water, soil, groundwater, vegetation and wildlife habitat), with a focus on Indigenous communities.
Emphasis will be placed on sensitivities and potential impacts on soil, surface water, groundwater, vegetation communities and wildlife habitats.
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APNR 1040 Land Tenure (3,0,0) APNR 1040 Land Tenure (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits This course introduces the student to the fascinating melange of land tenure systems across Indigenous lands in general, and First Nations Reserves in particular. Emphasis is placed on the legislation that underpins such regimes (and the accompanying parcel-based property rights systems); on establishing and re-establishing parcels pursuant to such regimes; on the links between easily-used rights and socio-economic development; and on how such rights are negotiated, registered and searched.
Prerequisites: APNR 1010 AND APNR 1020 |
APNR 1060 Data Capture 2 (3,0,0) APNR 1060 Data Capture 2 (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits This course provides an introduction to data capture as it relates to legal and non-legal surveys (records, services & products) with an emphasis on Indigenous communities by building on the knowledge and skill acquired during the Data Capture I course. Some emphasis will also be placed on more modern technologies like Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS).
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APNR 1070 Introduction to Digital Mapping 2 (3,0,0) APNR 1070 Introduction to Digital Mapping 2 (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits This course builds on GIS/Mapping I by expanding on spatial data use in a GIS, and culminates in building a custom community map of the students' own community. Emphasis will be placed on attribute data, creating your own spatial data, aerial imagery, and geographic analysis using Indigenous examples.
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APNR 1080 Land Use Planning II (3,0,0) APNR 1080 Land Use Planning II (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits This course complements Land Use Planning I – Environmental assessment. Planning I focused on the bio-physical aspects of the Reserve land base (i.e. what is the natural environment); Planning II focuses on the socio-cultural aspects of the Reserve land base (i.e. who can do what where). Emphasis is placed on community aspirations and consultation; on linking human activities with appropriate land parcels; on the nexus between land use planning and socio-economic development; and on the benefits of coordinating planning with surrounding/abutting communities.
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APNR 1090 Independent Research Project (3,0,0) APNR 1090 Independent Research Project (3,0,0)Credits: 3 credits Complete an Independent Research Project focused on a land management issue within your community. This project will apply the range of knowledge and skills acquired from previous courses. Such application will result in a written report that addresses a specific land management issue, outlines the methodology used to address the issue, and will demonstrate how the skills of mapping, data capture and land use planning were applied to this project. In addition, two presentations will be made:
-To community members involved in lands management*
-To the class
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