Getting started

Everything runs in Google Colab, in your browser

What you need

A Google account (a personal Gmail account works).
A recent web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari). No software installation and no powerful computer are needed.
For Module 2: a Google Earth Engine account (see below).

How a training session works

Open a module from Courses and click Open in Colab next to the session.
Colab opens the notebook with the R runtime. Check it under Runtime → Change runtime type → R.
Run the Setup cell first (≈1–3 minutes). It downloads the training project, installs the R packages and gets the course data.
Run the cells in order with Shift + Enter. Read the comments, change parameters, and experiment.
Keep your work with File → Save a copy in Drive, and download output files from the Files panel on the left.

Colab resets

A free Colab session stops after about 90 minutes without activity, or when you close the tab. Your saved copy in Drive is kept; just run the Setup cell again. Notebooks that build on a previous session have a Fresh runtime? cell that re-creates what they need.

Google Earth Engine (Module 2)

Register at https://earthengine.google.com/register for non-commercial use and create or select a Google Cloud project.
Run the export script from the module in the Earth Engine Code Editor.
Share the export folder in your Google Drive as Anyone with the link → Viewer and paste the link into the notebook.

Prefer to work offline?

All notebooks are also available as .ipynb downloads, and the original R scripts are in the Training Resources repository. They run in RStudio on your own computer; see Software installation in the manual.