Courses / Eyes in the Sky / High School

Offered through the University of the West Indies

Eyes in
the Sky

Read the sky like a scientist. In one afternoon.

Right now, a satellite is passing over your island, taking pictures in colours your eyes cannot even see. That data is free, and almost nobody your age is using it. In one afternoon, you will. You will write real code, pull a live image of Jamaica onto your own screen, and use the same tools NASA uses to track hurricanes, heatwaves, and vanishing forests. No experience needed. Bring a laptop. Leave a scientist.

Sign Up Free See the Afternoon
3 hrsOne afternoon
13–18Ages
8 linesOf code to first image
UWICertificate

Why you should care

Be the Future of the Region

This is one of the only fields on Earth where a teenager in Jamaica gets the exact same tools as a scientist at NASA, for free. The hurricanes, the heat, the flooding, the shrinking forests, they are happening to your home, and the data to see them is just sitting there. Most people scroll past it. In three hours, you learn to read it. That is a real skill, a real flex, and a real head start. The next generation of Caribbean scientists starts with someone. It might as well be you.

If you are a student

You will build something real and walk out with proof: code that runs, a map you made, and a UWI certificate. Not a worksheet. An actual skill almost nobody your age has.

If you are a parent

It is free, safe, and supervised on the UWI Mona campus, and it points at real university and career pathways in science and tech. Three hours that can change how your child sees their future.

If you are a school

A ready-to-run STEM experience with real research faculty, real datasets, and a certificate your students can put on a university application. You send a cohort, we bring everything else.

The satellite is already flying. The data is already free. The only question is whose kids get to use it. Adrian Dunkley, course instructor

What you walk out with

Stuff You Can Actually Do By 5 O'Clock

This is not a drill

The Reason This Is Not Just a Class

2024

Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, and it hit home.

NOAA National Hurricane Center
70%

of Jamaicans live in coastal areas, the exact places satellites watch most closely.

Planning Institute of Jamaica
2%

the small-island share of global climate committees. The region most exposed contributes the least science. That is what this changes.

Think Global Health, 2025 review
3 hrs

is all it takes to put a professional satellite-analysis toolkit in a student's hands for the first time.

Eyes in the Sky

The afternoon

Three Hours. No Lectures You'll Forget.

You are on the keyboard the whole time. First you learn how satellites see, then you run real analysis on Jamaica, then you go head to head in a live hackathon judged by UWI scientists. It moves fast on purpose.

Part 1 • 45 min

Foundations

How satellites see the Earth, then your first lines of code. By minute 45, every student has pulled a live image of Jamaica onto their own screen.

  • Welcome and hook: what is changing in Jamaica
  • Bands, resolution, and revisit time
  • Your first live Sentinel-2 image, in eight lines
Part 2 • 75 min

Real Analysis

Forest loss, plant health, and land cover with AI. Real maps, real charts, real numbers in hectares and square kilometres.

  • Map every tree Jamaica lost since 2000 (Hansen)
  • Measure plant health with NDVI over Cockpit Country
  • Classify land cover with Dynamic World AI
Part 3 • 60 min

The Hackathon

Teams of four or five pick one of four Caribbean climate missions, build in 40 minutes, and pitch in two. Four awards, judged by UWI researchers.

  • Pick a mission with starter code included
  • Build a real prototype as a team
  • Pitch, and win one of four awards

Hour one

You Write This in the First 20 Minutes

Eight lines. One live image of Jamaica on your screen. Then you swap in the coordinates of your own school and watch it load. Yes, it is really this short. Yes, it really works. 

// Pick a spot on Earth
var jamaica = ee.Geometry.Point([-77.2975, 18.1096]);  // Kingston
Map.centerObject(jamaica, 9);

// Grab the clearest recent image of Jamaica
var image = ee.ImageCollection('COPERNICUS/S2_SR_HARMONIZED')
  .filterBounds(jamaica)
  .filterDate('2024-01-01', '2024-04-30')
  .sort('CLOUDY_PIXEL_PERCENTAGE')  // least cloudy first
  .first();

// Draw it on the map
Map.addLayer(image, {bands: ['B4','B3','B2'], min: 0, max: 3000}, 'Jamaica');

The hackathon

Pick a Mission. Win Your Team an Award.

Four real Caribbean problems, and your team picks one. Every mission comes with head-start code, so you never stare at a blank screen. Forty minutes to build, two to pitch, four awards on the line.

A

Hurricane Damage Detective

How much vegetation did Hurricane Beryl wipe out in St. Elizabeth?

NDVI before vs after

B

Kingston Heat Map

Which Kingston neighbourhoods run hottest, and do they have fewer trees?

Landsat thermal + Dynamic World

C

Coastline Tracker

Is the Portmore coastline changing over 40 years of shoreline data?

JRC Global Surface Water

D

Protecting the Blue Mountains

Is the National Park actually protected? How much forest has it lost since 2000?

Hansen inside park boundary

The real toolkit

The Same Datasets Scientists Use

Sentinel-2 10m optical, new pass every 5 days Landsat 8 & 9 30m with thermal, since 1972 Hansen Global Forest Change forest loss since 2000 Dynamic World AI land cover, 9 categories JRC Global Surface Water water since 1984 Google Earth Engine planetary compute, free for students

Where this takes you

People Get Paid Serious Money for This

This is not a hobby with no exit. The exact skill you learn in this afternoon is a real job, at home and around the world. You could be doing this for a living.

Disaster Response

ODPEM Jamaica, CDEMA, UN OCHA, the Red Cross.

Food & Agriculture

IICA, FAO, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Environment

Every construction impact assessment in Jamaica uses remote sensing.

Global Remote Roles

Google, Planet Labs, Maxar, and Esri hire satellite analysts from anywhere.

Your instructor

Taught by Adrian Dunkley

Adrian Dunkley
Adrian Dunkley
Scientist • Entrepreneur • Award-winning AI Builder

Adrian Dunkley teaches satellite data analysis with the Climate Studies Group, Mona, at The University of the West Indies. He is a scientist and entrepreneur, founder of StarApple AI, and works with young people across the Caribbean to put professional data tools in their hands early.

He runs this session the way a working lab runs: real datasets, real code, and a hackathon judged on whether your map actually answers the question. Every student who completes the course receives a UWI-branded certificate for their portfolio.

The academic home

Climate Studies Group, Mona

The Climate Studies Group, Mona is the Caribbean's foremost body of climate scientists, based in the Department of Physics at The University of the West Indies. For more than 35 years it has studied Caribbean climate and advised CARICOM, CIMH, national met services, and the United Nations. Eyes in the Sky extends that mission into the classrooms that will produce the next generation of Caribbean climate scientists.