EOSC 350

Official course description

Environmental, Geotechnical, and Exploration Geophysics I: Principles of geophysical survey design, data acquisition, processing and interpretation with emphasis on near-surface problems. Magnetic, seismic reflection/refraction, electromagnetic and ground penetrating radar surveys. Case history analysis of environmental and geotechnical problems.

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OCESE project objectives

The Jupyter Notebook-based dashboard apps for learning about applied geophysics were produced by the UBC Geophysical Inversion Facility (GIF) around 2016/17. These have served as inspiration for other OCESE projects. There was talk of converting at least a few of these to stand-alone dashboard apps rather than deploying them as Jupyter Notebooks, but this notion never became a top priority.

These notebooks require specialized Python libraries and therefore require custom Jupyter Hubs. The UBC open Jupyter hub was been ready for custom configurations, so the most recent deployment has been on a Department-supported third party hub by 2i2c.org.

Lessons learned

These types of dashboards or apps are windows of opportunity for students who can use them to explore concepts involving physics, math and applications. But until now they have required instructors who are also able to manage the servers or hubs that deploy them. With opensource community activitiy, it is possible now to deploy with third party support. It will not be long before such interactive capabilities will be easier to develop, test and deploy for instructors who do not have the time, resources, or inclination to tackle the technical underpinnings.