Guest lecture materials for GIS Practicum · Texas A&M University April 15 & 20, 2026 · CSA 303 · 4:10–5:25 PM
Instructor: Yifan Yang — PhD Student, GIScience & GeoAI, Texas A&M University
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- Understand what Git is and why version control matters for research
- Use the six core Git commands that cover 90% of real workflows
- Create a GitHub repository and push your work online
- Launch a live personal academic website at
your-username.github.ioin under 10 minutes - Know when and how to collaborate using branches and pull requests
| File | Description |
|---|---|
git-github-lecture.pptx |
17-slide lecture deck (concepts + live demo) |
exercises/handout.md |
Step-by-step in-class exercise — start here |
exercises/github-pages-guide.md |
Detailed website setup guide (3 difficulty paths) |
Yifan Yang-4.20-GIS Practicum.pdf |
Session slides as PDF |
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 0–15 min | Why version control? — The problem Git solves; the 3 states (working / staged / committed) |
| 15–30 min | Core Git commands — init, add, commit, log, clone, push, pull |
| 30–45 min | GitHub — Git vs GitHub, remote repos, push/pull workflow, collaboration with branches |
| 45–60 min | GitHub Pages — Free hosting, three setup paths (template / Jekyll / custom HTML) |
| 60–75 min | Hands-on — Every student launches a live site at username.github.io |
Open a terminal and run:
# 1. Create and initialize a repo
mkdir my-first-repo && cd my-first-repo
git init
# 2. Create a file, stage, and commit
echo "# My First Repo" > README.md
git add README.md
git commit -m "Initial commit"Then follow exercises/handout.md to push it to GitHub and turn it into a live website.
- Fork the template: Go to github.com/rayford295/academic-website-template → click Use this template → name your repo
your-username.github.io - Enable Pages: Settings → Pages → Source:
mainbranch → Save - Edit your info: Open
index.html, search forEDIT, and fill in your name, affiliation, and links
Your site goes live at https://your-username.github.io within ~60 seconds.
Full setup guide with 3 difficulty paths:
exercises/github-pages-guide.md
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
git init |
Create a new repository in the current folder |
git status |
Show what has changed since the last commit |
git add <file> |
Stage a specific file |
git add . |
Stage all changed files |
git commit -m "message" |
Save a snapshot with a description |
git log --oneline |
View compact history |
git clone <url> |
Copy a remote repository to your machine |
git push origin main |
Upload local commits to GitHub |
git pull origin main |
Download the latest changes from GitHub |
git branch <name> |
Create a new branch |
git checkout <name> |
Switch to a branch |
git merge <name> |
Merge a branch into the current branch |
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Interactive Git tutorial | learngitbranching.js.org |
| Official Git documentation | git-scm.com/doc |
| Pro Git Book (free) | git-scm.com/book |
| GitHub Pages documentation | pages.github.com |
| Class website template | github.com/rayford295/academic-website-template |
| al-folio (advanced academic template) | github.com/alshedivat/al-folio |
| GitHub Desktop (GUI) | desktop.github.com |
| Git cheat sheet (PDF) | education.github.com/git-cheat-sheet |
Yifan Yang is a PhD student in GIScience and GeoAI at Texas A&M University (GEAR Lab, advised by Prof. Lei Zou). His research focuses on autonomous GeoAI agents for geospatial scientific discovery.
- Website: rayford295.github.io
- GitHub: github.com/rayford295
- Email: yyang48@tamu.edu
Materials are freely reusable for educational purposes.