A state-of-the-art remote-sensing laboratory for geosciences includes comprehensive software packages and six Windows NT-networked computers and enables students to analyze different types of remotely sensed data and apply them to their respective disciplines. The IMAGINE software from ERDAS (Atlanta, Georgia) is used to process multispectral raster-type data, and the IDL/ENVI package from Research Systems (Boulder, Colorado) is used to process non-raster-type data. A shareware called BILKO is used in introductory courses for students to gain some fundamental knowledge in remote sensing. This laboratory is a major expansion of the old single-user image processor that has been used for the past 10 years. Specific course exercises are planned to utilize satellite data from GOES, Landsat, SPOT, NOM, Nimbus, TOPEX/Poseidon, Synthetic Aperture Radar data from space shuttle missions, and digitized images of aerial photographs. Not only can the archived data sets on magnetic tapes be used effectively in this laboratory, but also students can, through Internet connection, access existing and future remote-sensing data at NASA laboratories. It is anticipated that more spaceborne sensors may be put into orbit, such as that in NASA's Mission to Earth (Earth Observing System) project. This laboratory greatly enhances the learning process in the regularly offered remote-sensing course for students in meteorology, geology, oceanography, geography, and biology. Faculty of other science courses who may not have used remote-sensing data before can also use this laboratory after taking a workshop that is part of this project. The hands-on experience of digital image analysis on workstations also brings a very desirable strength to the technical background of the university's future geoscientists. *
