Our Curriculum

Our curriculum, "Open Climate Science for Agriculture," is composed of five (5) modules, each designed to be taught in about 4 hours. A brief description of each module is presented below. We're still developing the curriculum, so some modules may not be available yet.

Parlez-vous français? Our curriculum is also available in French!

Modules

Module 1

Open Climate Data

What NASA satellites, field data, and models can be used to analyze and predict Earth's climate variability?

Learn how re-analysis data, General Circulation Models, and Earth Systems models are generated and how they differ
Discover where different climate datasets can be obtained, at different spatial and temporal scales
Read and plot different climate variables from NASA datasets

Learn on Github! | Apprendre sur Github!

Module 2

Computational Climate Science

How can we analyze gridded climate datasets with spatial and temporal attributes? How is climate variability measured and modeled?

Learn what indices are available for meteorological drought, soil moisture drought, atmospheric water demand, and soil water balance
Efficiently load and analyze big climate datasets, including long climate data records
Calculate a drought index

Learn on Github!

Module 3

Open Science for Water Resources

What tools and datasets are available to quantify water quantity and availability?

Get acquainted with the major fluxes and pools of the terrestrial water cycle
Know where to access remotely sensed or modeled data on water storage anomalies, evapotranspiration, and soil moisture
Calculate a water budget

Learn on Github!

Module 4

Open Science for Soil Health

How can satellite observations and models help to predict and map indicators of soil health?

Know what remote-sensing and model-derived datasets are available to map dynamic soil properties (pH, SOC, soil texture)
Understand the basics of statistical learning and how classifiers are trained and validated against independent data

Module 5

Open Science for Crop Conditions and Crop Production

How can NASA datasets be used to map crop conditions?

Access and utilize satellite-based datasets on plant productivity, condition, and evapotranspiration
Understand how plants link between the carbon and water cycles through photosynthesis and evapotranspiration

All images from NASA.gov websites.