IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017 - 13

Nations (specifically the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management).
Recently, the lack of awareness of the direct connection
between spatial thinking, geosciences, and geotechnologies with mathematics is starting to be reversed by the recent designation of GIS and technology (GIS&T) as a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
discipline by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics [50]. This connection is significant because of the social
recognition of mathematics, the institutional support of
mathematics through the Common Core State Standards
for Mathematics, and the resulting social attention [5].
Some experts have already started using RS for promoting
STEM [51]. Furthermore, the interpretation and communication of data represent an interest that ranges across several disciplines. Likewise, the ability to use data competently
represents a growing demand in our knowledge society and
a skill valued by employers. To understand, manipulate,
and interpret data, it is important to understand how those
data are collected, preprocessed, and stored. UAVs offer the
opportunity to collect data relating to the Earth's surface in
a manner that is likely to be attractive to students. Collecting data at locations of interest for students has been proven
to increase their engagement [47], [52].
Disciplines that are not often related to mathematics,
such as ethics, could also take advantage of the availability of UAVs to discuss relevant issues like privacy versus security, the ethics of recording or capturing images of other
people, and so forth [53]. Such disciplines would also benefit from taking a closer look at a technology that is often
mentioned in the media but with which relatively few people are actually familiar. In fact, the ethics and privacy of
geospatial data have been identified as topics that will gain
relevance in the near future [54]. Problematically, many (if
not most) scholars in the field are not concerned with this
issue and, hence, do not include it in geotechnology courses. Considering the growth of UAVs mentioned in the previous sections, it is crucial that the geo community tackle the
issues derived from their operation and the manipulation
of the data collected.
In short, UAVs have the potential to take a significant role
in the development of innovative learning environments
and the approximation of geosciences and geotechnologies
across the curriculum. Moreover, they can be one of the
most visible tools for promoting the geosciences disciplines,
which prospective HE students may be unfamiliar with.
Specifically, geomatics is suffering a staggering decrease of
enrollment in countries like Spain [55]. This situation puts
several programs at risk. In some extreme cases in the United States, programs have had to shut down [56]. In Japan,
geotechnologies have managed to obtain certain recognition, although maturity has not been reached either [57].
One of the issues of learning about-or with-UAVs is
that so many educational activities take place in informal
settings [6]. For instance, it is relatively simple to find a
MOOC about UAVs, but very few HEIs have UAV programs
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IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

[24]. Certainly, many HEIs must be using UAVs either within geotechnology curricula or independently. However,
very little has been published about the experiences and
practices employed in such courses or the educational aspects of UAVs in subject areas such as RS, environmental
studies, ecology, conservation, vegetation sciences, forestry,
or precision agriculture.
Suitable learning should take place within formal learning environments in science classes, in mathematics for
systematic data collection and analysis, in technology, and
in design. A few relevant contexts for employing UAVs in
education at several levels include the following:
1) in career and technology courses in geosciences
2) for precision agriculture with UAVs in rural school districts with depressed economies
3) in the humanities to provide a cultural heritage perspective and engage students in history and archeology
4) in journalism and other areas that cover the power of
imagery
5) in philosophy and ethics.
Several of these contexts could be applied in one or more
educational stages, from middle school and high school to
HE and LLL.
There is no doubt that
in middle schools and high
UAVS HAVE THE
schools, qualified supervision
is necessary, but that is no obPOTENTIAL TO TAKE A
jection to developing interestSIGNIFICANT ROLE IN THE
ing local teachable moments
DEVELOPMENT OF
while collecting data related
INNOVATIVE LEARNING
to the Earth's surface. At this
ENVIRONMENTS AND THE
level, it may be interesting to
APPROXIMATION OF
combine UAVs with simple
GEOSCIENCES AND
imagery software to better
GEOTECHNOLOGIES
understand the environment
or implement simple transforACROSS THE CURRICULUM.
mations with software such as
Microsoft's Image Composite
Editor and Photosynth. An
alternative is the use of MATLAB (or its open-source alternative, GNU Octave) in mathematics courses for computing
basic image transformations (i.e., translation, reflection,
rotation, dilation, affine transformation, and so on). In this
manner, students are involved in the systematic collection
and processing of data while learning how to perform matrix computations both by hand and via programming. The
possibility of visualizing results has several advantages for
students, such as knowing immediately whether the computations are correct or better understanding phenomena
related to the Earth [58]. Other options, not necessarily
connected to UAVs, are the use of maps and services like
Mapmaker from the National Geographic Society, NASA's
Scientific Visualization Studio, and DigitalGlobe Developers, or even games like geocaching. Nondigital maps,
such as the ones depicting the life of the Spanish writer
Cervantes [59], are also applicable in literature courses to
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017