Earth Observation: Conveying the Principles to Physical Geography Students

In our experience of earth observation (EO) online learning we highlight the usefulness of the World Wide Web in terms of its software, functionality, and user accessibility for developing and delivering a range of activities and delivery modes to both undergraduate and advanced learners. Through the mechanism of developing teaching materials and adapting them for the online classroom, EO learning can become highly interactive and well-illustrated by linking to online image processing software and relevant image data, make use of the Web’s graphical interface to reinvigorate DOS-based remote sensing programs to be more student-friendly, and with the advent of collaborative Web software, such as Wiki, provide a networked community for EO learners. In this chapter we showcase a variety of delivery modes for our EO materials—online lectures delivered within a blended learning module for the undergraduate to individual online activities (remote sensing practical exercises and an electronic learning diary) for the advanced EO learner. Examples of our learning materials are discussed in this chapter to show how adapting to online delivery and making use of Web technology has supported our teaching of EO.