IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2015 - 47

education
Michael inggs,
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town,
Rondebosch, South Africa (e-mail: mikings@gmail.com)
nicky knox,
South African National Space Agency
Waldo kleynhans, and Jeanine englebrecT,
Meraka Institute, South Africa

The GRSS-AARSE Summer School 2014
I. SUMMER SCHOOL OVERVIEW
he fourth deployment of the GRSS Summer
School (GR4S) was on the 25th and 26th October, 2014, at the University of Johannesburg, South
Africa. The event was organized by the authors, in
conjunction with colleagues from our society providing the lectures. In this article we will outline
the event, as well as a large number of other training opportunities that were provided at the African
Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment
conference, held in Johannesburg from 13th to 17th
October, 2014 (http://www.aarse2014.co.za/). The
objective of the article is to promote the idea of Summer Schools as an event that can be replicated and
adapted for use outside of its traditional spot as part
of the IGARSS. In addition, using the large number
of well known educators that travel to a major symposium, it is possible to leverage their availability to
assist in teaching wide range of material, suitable for
students as well as professionals.

II. GOALS OF A GR4S VERSUS TUTORIALS
The GRSS Summer School, first held before the Munich
IGARSS (2012) was designed as a pre-conference event
that provides an outstanding opportunity to obtain
a broad knowledge of the fundamentals of a range of
geoscience techniques, from local and international
authorities, and to meet other attendees before the
conference begins.
The level of the GR4S is introductory, aimed at early
Ph.D. students, or, advanced Masters students. This
is to be contrasted with the Tutorials that are held the
Sunday before an IGARSS starts. These Tutorials are
intended to provide advanced updates to the Geoscience

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2015.2398376
Date of publication: 25 March 2015

MARCH 2015

ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

and Remote Sensing practitioner i.e. Continuing Professional Development.
A further objective of the GR4S is to allow students
to meet some of the well known local and international
experts in the field of Geoscience and Remote Sensing. This
personal contact can only assist
PLEASE COnTACT THE
in the development of the career
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATIOn
of the students.
TO DISCUSS A POSSIbLE
The more intensive training
SUMMER SCHOOL In
courses (multi-day) were first
held at the 2009 IGARSS in
yOUR REGIOn, AS A
Cape Town. The 2014 AARSE
STAnD-ALOnE EVEnT,
carried on this tradition, and
OR, AS PART OF A LOCAL
also arranged a number of trainCOnFEREnCE.
ing courses that will be elaborated below.
These course, were also at
an introductory level. Both GRSS members and local
experts contributed to the training programme, that
extended from 20th October, the week before the
AARSE event.
III. THE GRSS/AARSE SUMMER
SCHOOL PROGRAMME
A. ContACts/orgAnizers
Jeanine Engelbrech, Co-chair GRSS/AESS South
Africa (JEngelbrecht@csir.co.za), The Meraka Institute,
Pretoria, South Africa. The Meraka Institute is managed
by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR), South Africa.
Waldo Kleynhans (wkleynhans@csir.co.za), The
Meraka Institute, Pretoria, South Africa
Objectives The summer school was run over two
days with basic concepts covered on the 1st day, followed by more specific and advanced topics on the 2nd
day: see Table 1.
47

http://www.aarse2014.co.za/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2015