Technical & Software

Prompt and Context Engineering for Professionals

This course builds upon our AI foundations to help you move from basic prompting to strategic AI collaboration. You will learn to stop "ordering" and start "briefing" your AI tools like highly skilled consultants who just need the right background to excel.

The Core Transformation: Expertise to AI-Readable Context

The primary focus of this workshop is the translation of your domain expertise into a structured, digital form that grounds AI reasoning. You won't just learn to write better prompts; you will learn to build a Context Library—a reusable set of "fixed" information that keeps your AI tools accurate, on-brand, and aligned with complex regulatory requirements.

What You Will Achieve

• Speak in a language AI understands: Through prompt engineering, you will learn how to give instructions for tasks to get better results from your AI tools.

• Build your reusable library: Begin crafting your own personal and organizational context packages, including your professional persona and project-specific knowledge.

• Introduce tools to streamline your AI experience: Discover tools that help you spend less time prompting with better output. 

By the end of this course, you will leave with the foundational documents of your own Context Library, ready to be deployed across various AI tools to ensure your outputs are consistent and professionally tailored to your specific needs. 

This introductory course empowers environmental professionals to leverage the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence, AI, to enhance their work and drive sustainable outcomes. Moving beyond the hype, this course focuses on practical applications, demonstrating how AI can augment human capabilities rather than replace them.

Participants will gain a foundational understanding of AI concepts and explore real-world examples of how AI can augment their productivity and optimize their time management. Through hands-on exercises and case studies, you will learn to identify key opportunities for AI in your daily workflows, select appropriate AI tools for specific tasks, and master the art of writing effective prompts to get the most out of publicly available AI applications. This course is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to confidently navigate the evolving landscape of AI in environmental science, fostering innovation and efficiency in your professional endeavors.

**Note - For every course we have implemented live stream remote attendance options for those who prefer a no-contact alternative to in-person attendance.  You will need a computer and an internet connection.  We will follow the maximum in-person meeting size as per health authorities and if recommended we will only offer remote attendance.

If conditions permit, you are welcome to attend the course in-person, we likely will have between 5 to 10 in-person attendee's in a large room to provide safe spacing.  We also wipe every surface down and provide hand washing and disinfectant wipes as a courtesy.  If you would like more information or have any questions, please contact us via email or phone 425 270 3274

Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of data defensibility for environmental field and laboratory programs, and proactive strategies will be covered.  The elements needed to produce data which can withstand legal challenges will be examined in detail, and the actions and materials required to produce and maintain defensible data will be full explored.

The elements needed to produce defensible data that will be covered are:

• Field documentation from arrival until departure
• Laboratory documentation and reporting
• Conformance with regulatory and programmatic requirements
• Compliance with regulatory and programmatic requirements
• Introduction to statistical analyses and their role
• Reports

This course is designed to provide field engineers and laboratory personnel with the tools to  produce environmental data that is invulnerable to legal challenges.  Students will be introduced to the legal aspects of environmental projects to provide context for discussion.  Case studies will be included illustrating how sound environmental practices with rigorous attention to established good practices can protect a project from unnecessary failure if challenged.  Detailed reviews of field and laboratory records will be performed to identify vulnerable points.

This course may be taken as a follow-up to the Principles of Quality Assurance and Quality Control, Writing a QAPP, and/or Evaluating Data Quality for Decision Making courses, or may be taken as a stand-alone class. 

**Note - For every course we have implemented live stream remote attendance options for those who prefer a no-contact alternative to in-person attendance.  You will need a computer and an internet connection.  We will follow the maximum in-person meeting size as per health authorities and if recommended we will only offer remote attendance.

If conditions permit, you are welcome to attend the course in-person, we likely will have between 5 to 10 in-person attendee's in a large room to provide safe spacing.  We also wipe every surface down and provide hand washing and disinfectant wipes as a courtesy.  If you would like more information or have any questions, please contact us via email or phone 425 270 3274.  

This course will show the student how to resolve the questions:

Is project data of the right type, quality, and quantity to support their intended use?
How are the various data elements used for decision making?

We will address the following aspects individually to separate and better understand the essential
components used to make appropriate decisions:

• Data reduction for efficient assessment (assessment of data validation output)
• Compliance with regulatory and programmatic requirements
• Representativeness and completeness of the data set
• Fulfillment of data quality objectives
• Application and assessment of statistical methods in decision-making

Finally, we will pull our assessments of these elements together to produce a detailed evaluation
of data usability for project objectives, which will answer whether a decision can be made with
the desired level of certainty, and then we will examine how to apply the obtained data in the
decision making process.

This course is the next step for students who have mastered the materials covered in NWETC’s
Principles of Quality Assurance and Quality Control in Environmental Field Programs course.
Students will be comfortable proceeding directly from the first course to the second. Although
all data users will benefit from the formal introduction to quality assurance methodologies
covered in the Principles course, those who already utilize statistical analysis tools and skills in
their daily work may be able to start with this course.
 

This 3-day, hands-on class introduces participants to the environmental applications of ESRI's new ArcGIS PRO software. All attendees will have their own workstation with ArcGIS Pro and applicable plugins.

The course will build upon a discussion of general concepts and vocabulary to form a comprehensive overview of ArcGIS Pro’s functions and uses in the environmental field. Each participant will have their own computer workstation to create, edit, display and analyze real world environmental data during numerous hands-on exercises. Course exercises build from foundation concepts to increasingly complex spatial analysis and in-depth projects.

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply a conceptual overview of GIS and spatial analysis to environmental data

• Understand and utilize the fundamental capabilities of ArcGIS Pro

• Conduct spatial analysis using ArcGIS Pro

• Use common geoprocessing tools such as buffers, unions, intersections, and clips

• Identify and analyze spatial relationships between layers of geographic data

• Perform complex relational database queries

• Generate presentation-quality maps

**This course was presented as a live webinar in 2015 in six 2-hour sessions. **

Purchase includes 10 files:

• Audio/Video recording of six 2-hour sessions,
• Two course workbooks,
• Exercise packets for each part

Many people use Excel every day yet barely scratch the surface of what they can accomplish with this powerful program. 

In Part 1, users will learn to utilize Shortcuts, Functions, and Charts, and explore all of the hidden tools that are at their disposal.

After completing Part 1, participants will be able to:

• Understand intermediate to advanced uses of Microsoft Excel beyond the simple data table
• Feel comfortable exploring and using functions and recording macros
• Leverage charting, Sparklines, PivotTables and PivotCharts for data visualization and trend analysis
• Gain proficiency in using power shortcuts and recording macros that will save time.

In Part 2, the focus is on Analysis and Visual Basic Programming. Excel comes packaged with lots of tools specifically designed to speed up analysis and auditing tasks, yet many people never know how to use them, or that they even exist in the first place. During this section, users will learn how to incorporate these workhorse tools into their Excel repertoire.

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Install and use the Analysis Toolpak to perform common statistical analysis of their data.
• Perform auditing and data validation tasks to help clean messy data sets and provide reliable results
• Learn the basics of using the Visual Basic editor to create custom routines and automate tasks.

In this two-day course, the principles of statistics as applied to the analysis of environmental data will be discussed, with as little mathematical detail as possible. Examples will be drawn from environmental applications. These examples will demonstrate the results of different techniques, giving attendees a greater understanding of situations when each of the various techniques for environmental data analysis should be used.

Topics and techniques discussed will include:

• Statistical Principles & Probabilistic Data Models
• Sample Design
• Estimating Means, Medians & Variances& Other Parameters
• Dealing with Non-detects
• Fitting Data to Distributions
• Functions of Random Variables
• Statistical Intervals
  • Confidence Intervals
  • Tolerance Intervals
  • Prediction Intervals
    • Parametric Methods
    • Non-Parametric Methods
• Hypothesis testing
  • Parametric
  • Non-Parametric
  • Bootstrapping & Randomization
• Analysis of variance
• Linear regression
• Logistic regression
• Contingency tables
• Statistical graphics
• Multivariate methods

This hands-on course is intended for anyone who needs to write QAPPs for water quality projects, without spending excessive hours writing and revising an unnecessarily complicated planning document.  Attendees will learn and become comfortable with the concepts, structures, and background materials needed for composing the QAPP, and the tools to turn what might be an overwhelming task into one that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort. 

With the instructor’s help, participants will perform customized exercises, working through one or more different QAPP templates that are provided to meet individual student needs. The instructor will share tips and tricks that go far beyond available on-line guidance; students will learn how to correctly and efficiently complete the template. This hands-on approach, with plenty of opportunities for questions and personalized answers, will help students come up to speed quickly without the doubts, slow responses, and steep learning curves inherent in self-taught or even the best on-line class systems.

Students are expected to come to the class with a basic understanding of the role of quality assurance and quality control in developing and conducting an environmental program for water quality monitoring.  Comfort in using programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel will be beneficial in getting the most of the class.

If you have any trouble registering please call (425) 270-3274 ext 103

Please wait to receive a course confirmation email, roughly one month prior to the class, before making any travel arrangements. 

**Note - For every course we have implemented live stream remote attendance .  You will need a computer and an internet connection.  

This course is designed for participants who wish to gain beginning to intermediate skills in using R for manipulating, visualizing and analyzing their environmental or ecological data.  R is a comprehensive statistical programming language that is cooperatively developed on the Internet as an open source project. This freely available statistical package R is a powerful tool and is projected to become the most widely used statistical software.

This class uses datasets complete with errors you get practice taking real field data into R, through hands-on using instructor-led examples. It is applicable to anyone that conducts environmental monitoring or uses environmental or ecological data for research, management, or policy-making and is recommended for anyone needing to become proficient with R basics.  Being proficient in R will help participants be competitive in their chosen fields.

After completing this course attendees will be able to:

• Understand the uses of R for working with environmental or ecological data
• Installing R and R libraries
• Import and export data from Excel
• Sorting, merging, and aggregating, subsetting, and converting data
• Query and display data and generate basic data summaries
• Create a variety of high quality data visualization graphics
• Perform common statistical tests including t-tests, ANOVA, and  linear models
• Develop basic scripts to automate and document procedures and analyses

Please note that attendees will need to have a laptop to class with the R software program. Instructions on how to download the program will be emailed out prior to the class. Installations must be completed prior to class - please contact us if you are having problems.

*Reduced tuition is available for Native American tribes, government employees, nonprofits, students and AFS, NAEP, NEBC, TAEP members.

You may register online or by calling the Northwest Environmental Training Center at (425) 270-3274. Online registration is strongly encouraged.

Please wait to receive a course confirmation email, roughly one month prior to the class, before making any travel arrangements.

This course provides environmental professionals with an understanding of generating defensible environmental analytical data from the planning stage, through the field and laboratory phase, to final reporting. The course covers proper project planning considerations (What is a “representative” sample?), choosing the right analytical methods, and hands-on sampling exercises collecting water and soil samples. Students will also learn methods and how to operate some common field screening instruments.

The focus will be on learning how to be an “educated consumer” of environmental laboratory data, with an overview of common environmental methods and lab instrumentation. Topics will include understanding the EPA Data Quality Objectives process, how quality assurance/quality control samples affect your results (data usability assessments), chain of custody protocol, and knowing and controlling sources of error. Case studies from successful criminal cases will provide examples for discussion.

Intended Audience:  Junior to mid-level environmental professionals involved with site investigation and remediation who collect, screen, or interpret environmental analytical data. Some college level chemistry is helpful but not required.

Course Materials:  Attendees will receive a binder containing workshop proceedings and reference material.

Continuing Education Units:  1.3 CEUs

Registration:  $545/$470* 
(*reduced tuition for employees of Native American tribes, government agencies, and nonprofits; students; and NAEP, NEBC, NWAEP members).

You may register online or by calling the Northwest Environmental Training Center at (425) 270-3274. Online registration is strongly encouraged.