Proposed lesson plan for working with satellite observations

[resmaili]

Thank you for your interest in developing and sharing lesson materials! To submit lesson materials or suggest a topic for future curricular development, please answer the questions below. Our Curriculum Development Team will follow up to suggest next steps in your lesson's trajectory. Questions? Please email [email protected].

1. What is the topic of your lesson or lesson proposal?

Working with satellite observations of the Earth using Python

2. Do you already have a draft of your lesson? You're welcome to share materials at any stage of development. If you already have drafted materials, please include a link.

https://github.com/modern-tools-workshop/NCWCP-python-workshop-2020

(If you answered "No" to question 2, you can skip the remaining questions. Thank you for your lesson idea!)

3. Do your materials conform to our Code of Conduct?

Yes

4. Are your materials already on GitHub and do they use The Carpentries lesson template? (you can visit our lesson example to learn more about how to use our template).

No

5. If you answered "No" to either part of question 4, would you like our Curriculum Team to create a repository for you in The Carpentries Incubator?

Yes

6. If you answered "Yes" to both parts of question 4, would you like to transfer your repository to The Carpentries Incubator? You will have Admin access to the repository.
   N/A

7. If you answered "Yes" to either question 5 or 6, list the GitHub handles for people who should have Maintain access to your lesson. If you don't know how to answer this question, don't worry! We can always add collaborators later.

8. Any other information you would like us to have or questions you have for us?

Thank you for sharing your lesson with The Carpentries community!

[MCMaurer]

Hi @resmaili, thank you for your submission to the Carpentries Incubator! After taking a look at your existing lesson, it sounds like it overlaps quite a bit with the Python for Atmosphere and Ocean Scientists lesson that's currently in The Carpentries Lab. We like to encourage community members to contribute to existing lessons rather than start similar lessons in the Carpentries Incubator. You can contribute to that lesson by opening an Issue in its repository, suggesting any changes or additions you think would be worthwhile.

If you think your lesson differs sufficiently from the one in the Lab, let me know, and I can go ahead and open a new repository for your lesson in the Incubator. You will have to adapt your existing work to use the Carpentries template; you can find some guidance on that process in the Carpentries Curriculum Development Handbook.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

[DamienIrving]

I was the one who initially suggested to @resmaili that she should submit an incubator proposal (I reached out after reading her book, Earth Observation using Python: A Practical Programming Guide), so I thought I'd jump in here with some comments.

I agree that the content in the example lessons that @resmaili has linked to (https://github.com/modern-tools-workshop/NCWCP-python-workshop-2020) - which cover the basics of working with generic gridded geographic data using Python - have significant overlap with my Python for Atmosphere and Ocean Science (PyAOS) lessons.

I think a contribution that @resmaili could make that is distinct from the PyAOS lessons would be a set of new lessons that primarily focus on the unique things you need to know when working with satellite data, as opposed to just generic gridded geographic data. There would inevitably be some overlap with the PyAOS lessons (particularly in the earlier introductory part of the lessons), but the focus on satellite data would mean those lessons contain enough unique satellite-related content to stand on their own.

[MCMaurer]

Hi @resmaili, my apologies for the long delay in getting back to you on this. It sounds like your lesson would differ sufficiently from the Python AOS lesson to warrant its own lesson, so we would be more than happy to accept it to the Incubator. If you would still like to move your lesson content into a new repository in the Incubator, let me know and I will go ahead and create an empty lesson repository for you!

I wanted to discuss the degree of overlap with the Python AOS lesson and how that might impact the lesson's acceptance into the Carpentries Lab, if you ever plan on submitting it there. If the early parts of your lesson remain similar to the AOS lesson, I think I would suggest linking to the early parts of the AOS lesson, and using your lesson to diverge from the AOS lesson when it becomes necessary. That way, in the future, we could possibly combine the two lessons into a sort of forking path, where learners start off with the same introductory material, and then diverge depending on the type of data they are interested in working with. For the long-term usefulness of Lab lessons, we think creating modular lessons this way, rather than duplicating introductory material, would be ideal.

However, if your introductory material changes significantly from the Python AOS lesson, by all means, keep the entire lesson as a distinct and separate lesson.

These issues don't pertain to the lesson's acceptance into the Incubator, but are things worth thinking about if you are interested in submitting your lesson to the Lab in the future!