Course Instructor: Sam Purkis, PhD.
Email: "Sam Purkis" <de-environremsens_1 barney mail fred ocean fred nova fred edu>
Remote Sensing is not about interesting pictures of the Earth's surface, although there are some spectacular images to be
discovered. It is really about careful, precise measurements of surface parameters, including:
The syllabus introduces electromagnetic radiation principles in the context of Earth observation. Students gain an overview of
the current status of active and passive, air- and space-borne RS systems. You will follow a typical processing-stream
required to extract quantitative information from satellite imagery, and will then be introduced to the field of GIS through
specific environmental case-studies. Image calibration, geo-rectification and classification are covered by providing a
grounding in the theory underlying image processing.
The text for this course is entitled 'GIS Tutorial, Workbook for ArcView 9' and can be purchased for $79.95 directly from the
ESRI
website.
Beyond being an excellent reference book, the text comes with a 180-day trial version of ArcView 9.3 software on DVD and a CD
of data for use with the tutorials. We will be making use of these during the course.
About the Course Instructor
Dr. Purkis moved from England to earn both his masters and doctorate degrees from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, where he studied carbonate geology and the dynamics of coral reef systems. He is now employed as a research
scientist within NOVA's National Coral Reef Institute and works extensively in the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. Dr. Purkis regularly presents at international meetings and has authored numerous articles on remote sensing
technologies and their application to coral reef processes.
This course assumes that you have an interest in Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and large-scale
Earth observation, and wish to learn about using these tools to study the Earth and its processes. It doesn't matter
whether you consider yourself a chemist, physicist, biologist, geologist or geographer, or simply have a reasonable
grounding and interest in the Earth Sciences. Nonetheless, you must be prepared to grapple with some basic ideas of
Physics. This distance-learning course is designed to be accessible and to give a general induction to a wide scope of
relevant topics.