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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