Earth Observation for Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Earth Observation for Education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Natural sciences; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space and space still inspires; a view of our planet from space reminds us we have only one planet that needs to be taken care of. Young people are more and more aware of this and are open to using technology in new and exciting ways. Our project uses data from space and will develop learning resources so that the next generation know this data is available and growing and evolving and can be used to better map, measure, monitor and sustainably manage our planet.
Our project will focus on developing resources and training for teachers, enabling them to develop lessons within existing curricula that involve all of the components of this project. Those components include the principles of remote sensing, geospatial science and satellite Earth Observation (EO), the concept of global citizenship and our collective responsibility for the change required to protect and enhance our shared natural environment, particularly in the area of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Data ‘remotely sensed’ by satellites, the International Space Station (ISS) and other geoinformation will be used in order to let the students independently experience scientific data processing and analysis techniques in STEM subjects.
We will create interactive e- and m-learning resources for use by teachers delivering STEM subjects within primary and lower secondary education (8-12 yrs). University students will contribute to the development and production of these resources. These will be tested in schools across Europe bridging the gap between background knowledge of this data technology and, the broad range of potential applications across a number of disciplines.
Teachers are essential for this project, they are key to bringing science and education together.
The project team will prepare and organise training courses for school teachers, instructors in non-school institutions, and students and pupils. All resources will be based on open data such as the European Space Agency and European Union’s Copernicus Programme Sentinel data and other open accessible geoinformation products such as digital elevation models and census data.
The project will also comprise a mobile technology and citizen-science component with students trained in creating their own data collections based on in-situ measurements and the use of GNSS enabled mobile devices. Use cases will involve the natural environment and how this can be managed and monitored, and how this might be changing and why. This project will encourage students to think about how these datasets and resources can be used both now and in the future particularly in the context of sustainable development on a global scale. Our project will address the digital and technology gap in school curricula and the gender divide in STEM subjects by:
– developing resources especially targeting the issue of female under-representation in STEM-oriented jobs; and
– providing resources that can be applied for a range of applications. Students/teachers are not only trained in the use of scientific data and software but also in formulating hypotheses and in researching them on their own.
Results will include better equipped teachers to confidently embed and deliver remote sensing principles and geoinformation data and technologies into their lesson plans and projects; we present case studies that illustrate a cross-curricula approach. The teacher training will apply processing and analysis techniques with real data and results of current and upcoming satellite technology and missions; we will prepare and disseminate the concepts and cross-curricular thinking. The basic principles are covered in the natural sciences like maths, physics, or computer science, but in the applied sciences, e.g. geography or biology, data is analysed to answer a certain research question. Our project will attract teachers of non-STEM subjects like philosophy, arts, and history, since the topics covered always involve “big questions” of the past and future of human development. It would also meet the rising “STEAM” paradigm in scientific didactics.
We will achieve these through offering training sessions very close to actual data/new scientific insights. Aspects of propaedeutics will be naturally included and teachers will gain experience on how to include new scientific results in their lesson plans. The classroom resources will be disseminated with extended didactic commentaries, role lessons, and sample solutions.
The impact will include more involvement in scientific research that underpins climate change through activities that engage pupils, particularly female and teaching staff in geospatial science and satellite EO applications.This project takes the concept of global citizenship and our collective responsibility for the change that is required to protect and enhance our shared natural environment, particularly in the area of the UN’s SDGs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 447172 Eur

Project Coordinator

International Links (Global) Ltd & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
• Ysgol Bro Hyddgen
• Zakladni a Materska skola,Praha 6, Bila 1
• Willy-Brandt-Gesamtschule
• Primary School of Kouloura
• Geo Smart Decisions Ltd
• UNIVERZITA KARLOVA