This training course provides an opportunity to develop different abilities and skills to handle laboratory equipment in a safe and precise manner.
Every student who will be using ITC’s GeoScience Laboratory for their MSc Research phase, for sample preparation or for selected lab experiments (analytical), will be required to follow this course.
In general lab skills the student will learn how to keep a proper lab journal and how to operate according to health and safety rules. The student will know how to take representative samples and will be introduced to a wide range of analytical techniques necessary to validate remote sensing or geo-information data. The student will learn to look critically at the obtained results.
As part of this course, the student will also learn how to perform statistical analysis on the results of lab experiments, and how to convert received data to the required concentrations. Throughout the course the student will be challenged to continuously monitor the quality of his/her experiments. To help the student to do so, he/she will document all lab work results in a so called ‘lab journal’.
All the learned skills are directly applicable in the student's MSc research phase when lab facilities are implemented. More in depth electives can be chosen when certain techniques need to be mastered.