Teaching GeoPython in a Geo-information Master Programme

At ITC, the Faculty of Geo--Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente, we have been educating geo-professionals for more than 70 years. We believe our students need a thorough knowledge of the processes required to solve geospatial problems. Teaching them off-the-shelf GIS tools will create button-pushers, whereas this age needs problem solvers. The only way to accomplish that is learning how to design, develop and implement your own solutions. Therefore, in our Geoinformatics curriculum, we have created a module called ``Scientific GeoComputing'', where the main language used is Python. In this talk we will introduce the educational setup of our course: the 4 main building blocks (General Programming, Algorithmics, Visualisation & Web development and GeoComputing), and how we take the students from absolute beginners with no coding experience to become confident users of Python and associated coding tool to solve geospatial problems. We realise that the field of geo-computing is wide and offers a gazillion ways for using computers in smart ways. We do know we cannot teach our students everything about computing and coding in a 7 EC course. So we focus on enabling them to develop their capacity to explore, develop and find out things themselves independently.