The 2012 Summer School on Spaceborne Earth Observations and Global Change was successfully held in the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) during the week of July 16 - 21. Over 100 students, including undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs and young researchers from different institutes and universities over the country attended the week-long summer school. Several world renowned scientists in the fields of space geodesy, geodynamics, remote sensing and climate change have delivered full five days of interesting, rich and informative lectures in the forefront of Spaceborne Earth Observations and Global Change (SEOGC).

　　 The SEOGC Summer School series was initiated in the summer of 2011, jointly sponsored by SHAO-CAS and the Center for Space Research (CSR), University of Texas at Austin (UT). The two main objectives of the SEOGC Summer Schools are 1) to promote the applications of spaceborne Earth observations and global change research in China (and surrounding regions), and 2) to help train future generations of young scientists in related fields. The first (2011) SEOGC Summer School had received extremely positive responses from the summer school attendees, and at the end (of the 2011 summer school), the students strongly requested to make the SEOGC Summer School as a continuous series event. This years students have also given similarly overwhelmingly positive comments on the outcome and importance of the summer school. We will consider continuing the SEOGC Summer School series in the future, on either yearly or bi-yearly basis.

　　 Both the 2011 and this (2012) SEOGC summer schools were a great success in accomplishing the objectives, and exceeding the expectations. Roughly the same number of students (100+) attended the first two (2011 & 2012) SEOGC summer schools. We are glad to see the change of student population structure of this year’s summer school. Well over 30 undergraduate students attended this year’s summer school, a significant increase from last year’s 14. We are also excited to see a significantly larger number of top ranked students in different universities coming to this summer school, and most of them have expressed strong interest of joining the SEOGC research fields for their graduate studies. This is exactly one of the main objectives we want to achieve through the summer schools – to promote the awareness of SEOGC research in related universities in China, and to attract more and more talented and bright undergraduate students to this field.

　　 The SEOGC Summer School has distinguished itself from most others out there. Compared to other mostly workshop-style summer schools (in which each teacher or speaker only gives a 20-30 min presentation), a unique aspect of the SEOGC Summer Schools is that each time we only invite a few world-class scientists in the field of SEOGC to teach a series of classes, ranging from 2 to 10+ hours. Therefore, each teacher can fully utilize the extended time period to paint a clear and comprehensive picture of the field, and introduce some very detailed knowledge and advancements in the field. Through these typical class-style lectures, the students can indeed learn something, and are able to understand the state-of-the-art knowledge in some specific fields. As each teacher can spend a reasonable long period of time in teaching the classes, our students also have the opportunity to closely interact with teachers during the classes and/or class breaks.

　　 These world-renowned scientists have not only brought the students the state-of-the-art knowledge and advancements in their own fields, but also become the role models to the students (because of their exceptional academic accomplishments, and admirable and humble personalities). For example, Dr. Anny Cazenave, a world leading scientist in space geodesy and climate change, and one of the pioneers in satellite altimetry has taught three 2-hours (6 hours in total) long classes, covering the history and current developments of climate change and spaceborne Earth observations. The summer school students are not only greatly inspired by Dr. Cazenave’s world acclaimed academic accomplishments and credentials (e.g., Fellow of the American Geophysical Union; Members of the French Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea; Foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences; Two times recipients of the Prize Doisteau-Blutet award of the French Academy of Sciences, and recipients of the European Geosciences Union’s prestigious Vening-Meinesz Medal and Arthur Holmes Medal), but also impressed by her charming, sweet and humble personality.

　　 Dr. Ben Chao, another world-renowned scientist in space geodesy and climate change, and a strong supporter to the SEOGC Summer School initiative, has delivered a whole one and half days’ classes starting with some very basic fundamental knowledge in space geodesy and geophysics, gradually extending to more complicated and advanced geophysics and geodynamics. At the end, a lecture on “Fun Topics in Geophysics” has led the students into an entirely new world, searching for climate change insights from ancient Chinese Fairytales.

　　 On the last day (July 21, Saturday) of the 2012 SEOGC summer school, we arranged a field trip for those interested students to visit the SHAO She-Shan Astronomical Observation Stations, including the SHAO 25m radio telescope station, the 1.56m optical telescope, the She-Shan Astronomy Museum, and the still under-construction giant, new 65m radio telescope (largest in the country). During this summer school, four qualified undergraduate attendees were admitted by SHAO as upcoming graduate students for next (2013) fall semester (and their graduate school entrance examinations were waived). 

　　 The great success of the 2012 SEOGC summer school is attributed to the combination of a number of factors, including the week-long interesting classes brought by the world-class experts in the field, active participation of the 100+ students from all over the country, strong and unselfish support of the local organizing committee members, and last (but not least), the generous support of SHAO and UT-CSR. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all who have contributed to the summer school in one way or the other, and look forward to continuing the SEOGC summer school series in the future, in collaboration with more related institutes or universities.

SEOGC-SS Online Albums can be downloaded at http://www.csr.utexas.edu/personal/chen/summerschool/

Reported by Dr. Jianli Chen (chen@csr.utexas.edu) 　　　　　 Date: 2012.07.26