IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2021 - 105

EDUCATION
ANA PRADOS, ERIKA PODEST, DAVID BARBATO, ANNELISE CARLETON-HUG, BROCK BLEVINS,
SELWYN HUDSON-ODOI, AMITA MEHTA, AND CRISTINA KAREN OVANDO CRESPO
Best Practices in Multilanguage Satellite
Remote Sensing Training
Case studies in Spanish-speaking countries
I
n this article, we discuss best practices for developing
multilanguage remote sensing training. Our discussion
is based on the approach developed by the NASA-funded
Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET)
program for Spanish-speaking countries. Best practices
include incorporating Spanish language at all phases of
the training cycle, from outreach activities to program
evaluation, and full integration of Spanish-speaking
translators and scientists into educational activities.
About 95% of participants from Spanish-speaking
countries report an improvement in knowledge and
ability to access remote sensing data, with a statistically
significant relationship between learning outcomes
and the number of ARSET trainings taken. In addition
to decision-making activities related to disaster-impact
analysis, hydrological modeling, and indigenous land
management, a large fraction of students and teachers
are using ARSET Spanish training resources in the classroom
and for research. These benefits are also illustrated
through a case study in Bolivia.
THE APPLIED REMOTE SENSING
TRAINING PROGRAM
Many students and professionals around the world face
the challenge of learning scientific content in a foreign
language, most frequently English [1], [2]. The first hurdle
is learning the technical terminology in a second language,
and the second and possibly greater issue is the
comprehension and retention of information with different
sentence constructions, grammar, and syntax [3], [4].
Therefore, there is a need for multilanguage technical education
and training to help improve learning outcomes
and access to more equitable learning opportunities.
The ARSET program provides free classroom and online
instruction in English and Spanish on the use of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2021.3060777
Date of current version: 17 June 2021
JUNE 2021 IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE
remote sensing assets [5]. It focuses on the use of these
assets for air quality, disasters, fire, health, land, and
water management at four levels of difficulty. It was
established in 2009 with the purpose of offering classroom
instruction for working professionals. After incorporating
online training courses in 2011, it very quickly
reached a global audience.
Between 2009 and May 2020, there were nearly
42,000 participants from 9,400 organizations and 173
countries. In 2020, more than 87% of participants came
from outside the United States. This trend has made it
even more imperative to provide access to learning content
in languages other than English.
From the beginning of the ARSET program in 2009,
there has been a special focus on providing technical
content in Spanish. Spanish is the second language in
the world according to the number of native speakers [6].
A student from Uruguay recently noted how language
impacts learning, including the language in which the
data are found:
The biggest barrier is at a more basic level: language.
I think that if you don't work on it, the
other technical improvements lose importance.
In the event that the data are in a single language,
it partitions and slows down the development of
any one area. Of course, language is not the main
purpose of this, but the accessibility of data is
strongly marked in the first place and in a basic
way by the language in which they are found. (August
2018, text translated from Spanish)
Disseminating technical information in Spanish
presents some unique challenges. Spanish is spoken in
many countries, which, added to the sheer number of
stakeholders, means that technical terms vary widely
and what is standard in one country may not be in another.
The term remote sensing itself symbolizes this challenge,
translating into " teledetección, " " percepción remota, "
or " teleobservación, " among others. This makes
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IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2021

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