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International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 6. Bandung-lndonesia 1999
Elaboration of Educational Material for the Teaching of Remote Sensing in
Developing Countries-EDUCA SeRe PROGRAM
Tania Maria Sausen
Ministry of the Science and Technology
National Institute of Space Research - INPE
Division of Remote Sensing - DSR
A.v. dos Astronautas 1758 Cx P.515
ZIP CODE 12201-970 Sao Jose dos Campos, SP, Brazil
Fax Number: (55) (12) 345 6870
E. mail : tania @ ltid.inpe.br
INTRODUCTION
From the launching of the first remote sensing satellite, in 1972,
the developing countries have been making use of data for the
study of natural resources. These same countries, as well as the
space agencies and the own UN’s Office for Outer Space
Affairs has worried with the dissemination and transfer of this
technology for end users. This is done through systematic
training programs offered by these institutions, in these
countries.
In Spite of all the developed activities, this technology is still
not used thoroughly in general by the public and very few
teachers make use of the satellite images as didactic resource.
These , when they are used, are practically limited to university
teachers, that are in some way involved with research in remote
sensing.
This happens mainly due to lack of training of the university
teachers in the area of remote sensing, to the high cost of the
satellite images and lack of educational material dedicated
exclusively to the teaching of remote sensing.
It is also observed is necessary to extend the process of
dissemination of technology of remote sensing for primary and
secondary students, because it belongs to this community of
students that the citizen of the future will appear, that he should
understand the relationship between the environment and
society, to protect and to preserve the earth. It is also in this
phase that these students are choosing their future profession,
being, the proper moment to motivate them to work with remote
sensing.
During the First Workshop on Education in Remote Sensing
Mercosul Wide, accomplished in the Camboriu Balneary, State
of Santa Catarina, Brazil, from May 20 to 23, 1997, one of the
discussed themes was the lack of educational material
specifically turned to the teaching of remote sensing , at all
levels. This is a problem that doesn’t only happen in the
MERCOSUL countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay
and Uruguay ) but in general, in all the developing countries, in
all continents.
During this Education Journey, the Document of Camboriu was
generated, that reflects the common position of these countries
with relationship to the teaching of remote sensing for the year
2000. In this document several aspects are mentioned about the
difficulty of generation of educational material and that
certainly they affect the great majority of developing countries
development, such as :
the information coming from remote sensing data can be used at
the different formal teaching levels (primary, secondary, tertiary
and graduate degrees);
this type information can also be used in informal educational
programs, such as extra curricular education, as a tutorial and at
long distance education;
can be considered as educational material in remote sensing the
textbook; pedagogic notebooks for teachers and students;
geographical atlas composed by satellite images; letter image;
CD ROM with satellite images; videos and slide with satellite
images; available tutorials in Internet; bibliography in general in
the area of remote sensing; photos and mosaics of different
scales and years of coverage; publicity educational material
produced by space agencies; images generated in publicity
material; showcase of satellite images in paper or digital;
specific software for teaching remote sensing and geographical
information systems, etc;
with regard to the readiness of educational material in remote
sensing , it was observed that:
there is lack of educational material with emphasis in examples
or studies accomplished in the countries of the area;
there is little educational material generated by authors and in
languages of the area and the same ones are already unupdated,
that is mainly observed in the Portuguese and Spanish speaking
countries. There is a great variety of educational materials in the
English and French languages, although most of is not
generated by authors of developing countries;
the little existing material is dispersed, specifically in libraries
of universities, research institutions and such information many
times in inaccessible or is not part of the modernization
programs. Such fact makes the learning of remote sensing be
limited to the most specializes professionals and is not part of
the context of teaching in general;
the existing educational material in general constitutes in
isolated efforts and in the teachers personal annotations that
minister the remote sensing courses and disciplines;
total lack of publishers interest for publication of technical
books on remote sensing due to the high production cost in face
of the reduced demand and need of presenting a great number of