Service-Learning: An EntrÉe to Introduce Minority Students to Remote Sensing Research

摘要

For too many undergraduate minority students, remote sensing and its plethora of applications to geophysics yet remain new, foreign, and mysterious. These students, even with the requisite STEM backgrounds, lack the exposure, the awareness, the understanding, and the engagement into the foray of remote sensing and the unique lens it provides to probe and unearth new ways of gaining knowledge about the environment. To strengthen undergraduate education, to adequately prepare candidates to become the next generation of geoscientists, and to assist in replenishing the geoscience workforce, unique paradigms of teaching and learning about remote sensing are needed. At the Center for Remote Sensing and Earth System Sciences (ReSESS) at the New York City College of Technology, the catalyst of Service-Learning within a local community was used as a means of attracting and engaging students in remote sensing research. Results show that the service learning-remote sensing nexus increased awareness and, understanding in the geosciences, and it motivated students to share their newfound knowledge with local citizens in environmental sustainability initiatives. Both students and citizens were enthralled by the engagement of remote sensing at the neighborhood scale.