DigitalEarth – Spring 2024 Quarter
The Earth is undergoing an era of rapid change, understanding this change and the impacts for life on Earth depends on systematically analyzing and interpreting evolving data, tools and theories that are highly interdisciplinary, yet need to be integrated into workflows capable of fostering understanding, knowledge and action. There is now a sizeable amount of remote sensing data (e.g. satellite imagery, aerial imagery, LiDAR) that has become increasingly accessible through platforms such as Google Earth/and Google Earth Engine, Climate Engine, and the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources LiDAR portal. These datasets can now be accessed through apps that do not require lengthy training or specialized skills to use.
The goals of this course are to develop remote sensing literacy and introduce geospatial technology to a diverse student population early in their academic careers.
This 5 credit, 100-level course course serves as an alternative pathway to introduce a diverse group of students to Geospatial Sciences through addressing large scale problems by using big data from global to local levels across a full spectrum of environmental applications. The knowledge and skills developed in this course can be taken and applied to many fields.
The objectives of this class are:
- To provide a gateway for students who may be interested in geospatial or environmental sciences
- To develop skills and knowledge that can be applied to many fields even without any further geospatial training.
- To engage through an interactive platform to enliven learning about environmental sciences.
In 2022 we added a climate justice (CJ) component to the course, this is incorporated through the course not just one module, if you want to see how we incorporate CJ in Digital Earth you can watch this video: Incorporating Climate Justice in Digital Earth Course.
The course strives to provide Areas of Knowledge (AoK) for undergraduate students with focus on: experimental study of the natural world (NW) and basic skills in developing an understanding of the complexities of living in increasingly diverse and interconnected societies (DIV).
Course format
There are ten modules in this online course. Each module is structured in the same way. For each module the course material is separated into four components (topic, concept, tool, demo). These components are delivered as two recorded lectures (topic and demo), one interactive webpage (concept), and interactive non-graded quiz (tool).
Course material
- Topic: We will start each module with a short recorded lecture covering a broad topic in the digital earth (e.g. What is remote sensing actually sensing?).
- Concept: We will dig into deeper concepts related to module topic through interactive reading material with links to relevant multimedia. (What is geospatial science?)
- Tool: We will build up our geospatial toolkit by learning a new skill (e.g. how to interpret aerial imagery) or introduce a cutting-edge tool (e.g. LiDAR).
- Demo: We will finish up by walking through a demo of how these tools and concepts can be applied. The demo will set you up to do your assignment for the week.