not sure if you know this but uv mapping is a way of mapping points on a 2D plane onto a 3D model..
hence why it's called uvs.. the u and v refer to the two directions in 2D because it would be confusing to call them x and y :p

yeah, not the best explanation but you can find better

if you've never laid out uvs before then you should do the tutorials that come with maya...

in fact if you plan on taking maya seriously you should really do some/most/all of those tutorials