BCUENR 2022: Experiential Learning in Three Dimensions: Introducing Lidar Remote Sensing to Students

A contribution to the 14th Biennial Conference on University of Education in Natural Resources, hosted in March 2022 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources and College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Rachel M. Stein*, Karla Eitel, and Janet L. Rachlow, University of Idaho. Content is the property of the authors under the Creative Commons agreement.

Remote sensing technologies and techniques including satellite imagery, photogrammetry, and lidar, have become essential across natural resource disciplines. However, natural resource undergraduate students typically receive limited exposure to these technologies and rarely have opportunities to experience them. We offered a one-credit experiential course to wildlife students at the University of Idaho focused on research assessing microsite habitat selection by red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). A key feature of this course was introducing students to lidar through an experiential curriculum. In addition to an introductory lecture, students assisted with two days of data collection in the field, including collection of terrestrial lidar data. They also engaged in a lidar “tutorial” for which they were provided lidar data and instructions on basic processing and analysis. Our curriculum demonstrates that even short courses may provide opportunities for experiential learning in remote sensing technologies useful to the career goals of natural resource students.