Education

One of the primary missions of the YCEO is to support education and training in the use of satellite remote sensing for the Yale community. Each year the YCEO supports one or more courses at Yale for upper level undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, the YCEO periodically offers a series of two-hour workshops to introduce the topic of remote sensing and enable students to perform basic image analysis.

Observing the Earth From Space (OEFS)

OEFS is a semester long course covering the theory and application of satellite remote sensing as a tool for environmental science. The lectures and lab exercises during the first half of the course include the fundamentals of electromagnetic radiation, reflection and absorption, satellite and sensor technology, GIS, map projections, and digital image analysis, as well as practical training with advanced image processing software and internet data acquisition techniques. The latter half of the course consists of a series of environmental case studies which use satellite image processing techniques to solve a particular problem or answer a particular question. These applications may include: forest harvesting and land use, geomorphology, ecology, epidemiology and infectious disease, archaeology, oceanography, geology, hydrology, meteorology and climate studies. In addition to weekly labs, each student completes an independent term research project and presents the results in lieu of a final examination.

Workshop on Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry with Drones - F&ES 704a

This course explores the current state and future outlook of remote sensing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) for environmental monitoring. UAV-based remote sensing is a rapidly developing field in environmental science and technology. The workshop is divided into three parts: (1) reviewing the state of the technology on UAV types, sensor configurations, and data acquisition methods; (2) exploring GIS and remote-sensing software tools for analyzing super-high-resolution spectral data acquired by fixed-wing drones; (3) cross-validating drone products against Lidar data and satellite imagery. Students may also have the opportunity to participate in drone flight missions.  An organizational meeting will be held Sept 4, 2019 in ESC 119 (YCEO Lab).  At this first meeting, the class time for the remainder of the semester will be finalized. For more information, check the F&ES course listing.

Remote Sensing of Land Cover and Land Use Change

This is an advanced course on the use of satellite remote sensing to monitor terrestrial land‐use and land‐cover change. The course combines lectures, seminar discussions, and labs to emphasize digital image processing techniques to detect landscape dynamics using data from satellite sensors. Lab assignments will focus on data from the Landsat sensors. Topics include pre‐processing data for change detection, accuracy assessment of change maps, and methodologies to detect changes such as urban expansion, deforestation, seasonal variations in vegetation, agricultural expansion, vegetation health, and wildfires.