Education

Radar remote sensing has a long and prosper tradition in the Earth observation sciences. Past, present and future satellite missions provide vast amounts of data for the analysis of the condition and development of the Earth surface as well as natural and anthropogenic habitats. The application of radar data is rife in nearly all fields of geoscientific research, decision making and the creation of commercial geographic products.

The project SAR-EDU is a joint education initiative of the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena (FSU), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and numerous partners in radar-related scientific institutions. In a previous project phase two main cornerstones for education in the field of applied radar remote sensing were established. Since 2013 the FSU is hosting a yearly summer school on applied radar remote sensing. Furthermore DLR and FSU published the SAR-EDU learning portal in late 2014 (https://saredu.dlr.de). This web portal is designed to provide access to a vast range of teaching material regarding the basics, methods and applications for radar remote sensing.

In the recent project phase it is planned to equip the existing web portal with further interactive functionality in order to create a vital online community for radar remote sensing education. The teaching material is available under a creative commons license (CC BY-SA 4.0) allowing for the usage, adaption and distribution of the material.

Future visions for this education platform include the creation of Massive Open Online Courses and innovative ways to provide, share and communicate application oriented SAR knowledge.

Since spring 2014, four commercial off-the-shelf cameras (COTS) are attached to the Columbus External Payload Adapter of ESA’s Columbus laboratory taking videos of the Earth 24/7. They are part of the NASA experiment ‘High Definition Earth Viewing’ (HDEV) which examines the applicability of COTS cameras for future space travels. The only European partner of HDEV is the educational project ‘Columbus Eye – Live-Imagery from the ISS in Schools’ which is in charge of archiving and publishing highlights of the HDEV experiment in a freely accessible web portal (www.columbuseye.uni-bonn.de). The educational project is carried out at the University of Bonn and sponsored by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The main goal of Columbus Eye is the didactical valorization of HDEV. It is a paradox, that the knowledge about earth observation as a key technology in our modern information society is not widespread. Here, the HDEV mission gives the opportunity to combine both: the fascination of space travels with the fascination of viewing our Earth from an Astronaut’s perspective. In order to implement earth observation techniques for a sustainable use in secondary school lessons, the project develops interactive teaching materials so that pupils are enabled to apply professional remote sensing analyses like land cover classification or change detection. To avoid an ‘art for art’s sake’, the open teaching materials provided in the Columbus Eye portal are guided by regular school curricula. The HDEV data is the basis for subject specific research questions. The presentation explains the development paradigm of the project rooted in problem-based learning and moderate constructivism. It introduces the project’s concept of self-reliant learning comprising three kinds of teaching materials with different degrees of interactivity and intensity of media application. It will be discussed how teachers are provided with didactical commentaries and trained in face-to-face workshops for an efficient and sustainable implementation of the material. Finally, it will be critically reflected how pupils’ competences in the field of knowledge, spatial orientation, methodology, communication, assessment, and action taking are fostered. In doing so, it is ensured that pupils can experience the value of earth observation and space technologies to monitor ongoing processes of coupled human-environment systems driving the future of the Earth.

The objective of this paper is to make a review of the current status of the PolSARpro v5.1 Software (Polarimetric SAR Data Processing and Educational Toolbox), developed under contract to ESA by I.E.T.R at the University of Rennes 1. The objective of this current project is to provide an Educational Software that offers a tool for self-education in the field of Polarimetric SAR data analysis at University level and a comprehensive suite of functions for the scientific exploitation of fully and partially polarimetric multi-data sets and the development of applications for such data. The PolSARpro Software establishes a foundation for the exploitation of Polarimetric techniques for scientific developments and stimulates research and applications developments using PolSAR and PolInSAR data.

The PolSARpro Software offers the possibility to handle and convert polarimetric data from a range of well established polarimetric airborne platforms and mainly spaceborne missions like ALOS-PALSAR, ALOS-PALSAR2, COSMO-SKYMED, ENVISAT-ASAR, RADARSAT2, RISAT, TerraSAR X, Tandem-X and recently SENTINEL-1. The PolSARpro Software proposes a great collection of well-established algorithms and tools designed for the analysis of only Single, Dual or Multi Temporal PolSAR Datasets with specialized functionalities for in-depth analysis of fully and partially polarimetric data and the development of applications for such data. The PolSARpro specific interface performs complete end-to-end processing without the need for other software and is selectable from the main menu. In order to take advantage of specific functionalities offered in the Sentinel-1 Toolbox a dedicated bridge has been built between the two softwares.

The presentation will be focused on new and original functionalities developed and implemented for polarimetric time-series Sentinel-1 SAR data analysis.

Space Awareness uses the excitement and challenges of space to interest young people into science and technology and develop their sense of European and global citizenship. Latest news and key advancement of the European space initiatives greatly contribute to it, showing the applications that space sciences have in the everyday life and how understanding the Universe can help understanding our own planet.

As the greatest current challenge facing humanity, Climate Change is given a privileged position in the project. Educating our children about climate change is an essential response to the environmental challenge. By increasing young people’s understanding about the issue and how space science helps in managing the crisis, we can encourage the new generations to change their behaviors and be more likely involved in the actions to be taken in order to mitigate the changes.

Earth observation can play other roles in young people’s education. The unique perspective given by showing the Earth from space provides an idea of how fragile our place in the Universe is. Sharing this view with children can help broaden their mind and contribute to stimulate a sense of European and global citizenship.

One objective of Space Awareness is to increase the knowledge of young people regarding space science and current missions, and contribute to inspire the next generation of space-related workers. Raising Awareness about Copernicus is a great opportunity to demonstrate how people with different science jobs, from different countries and backgrounds, collaborate towards common goals. Space Awareness offers specific suites of coherent resources to interest teenagers to careers existing in the space sector and understand their values.

A special toolkit involving the Copernicus mission is designed to showcase the project, and excite teenagers with careers and relevant current science that provides tremendous benefits to the society. “Our fragile planet” deals with the major environmental problems facing the world, the importance of Earth resource satellites in monitoring changes in the environment, the fragility of the Earth, and the role that the study of other planets in our solar system can play in successfully understanding and managing climate change. Human factors and chances of mitigation will also be addressed. The toolkit proposes innovative and complete resources for teachers and educators to apprehend the subject with children from 8 to 18 and provide high quality support material for them to engage with their students. It will contain around 20 experiments about the weather, climate, and climate change. It will include astronomical aspects, videos, and come with a comprehensive handbook.

Our fragile Earth will be developed in January 2016 and tested in February and March 2016. By May 2016, the project team will have received comments from 10 different countries in European and Africa to help localize and improve the resources. The complete “our fragile Earth” toolkit can be presented during the conference as well as the first evaluations implemented by the Space Awareness team. 

Due to the importance and ubiquity of remote sensing in science, industry and the public, the use of satellite imagery has been included into many school curricular in Germany. However, until today its integration into school practice is still hesitant, mainly due to the complexity of remote sensing data analysis and the lack of didactically well-prepared materials that align with the curricula.

In the project “Space4Geography” we develop a web-based learning platform with the aim to facilitate the integration of remote sensing into secondary school teaching and to foster effective student learning experiences in geography and related subjects. The platform features ten learning modules demonstrating the exemplary application of original high spatial resolution remote sensing data (RapidEye and TerraSAR-X) to examine current environmental issues such as land use change, droughts and deforestation. In this way, students will be introduced into the versatile applications of spaceborne earth observation and geospatial technologies. The topics are selected based on a systematic analysis of the current curricula of Germany’s federal states, thereby supporting a nationwide straightforward embedding into school teaching. The students approach the geographic questions using the integrated web-based remote sensing software “BLIF”. The software equips the students with a didactically prepared toolset to explore, process and analyze the satellite images. The toolset comprises for example image enhancement, vegetation indices, image classification and change detection.

In order to make the learning more effective, the modules support personalized learning paths, enabling the real-time customization of content and level of difficulty depending on the student’s performances respectively competencies. This approach seeks to overcome the known limitations of traditional one-size-fits-all settings which neglect the heterogeneity of the learner group. For teachers, learning management functions are provided which enable to investigate the students’ performances. The learning platform is optimized for both PCs and tablets. To ensure the applicability for teachers and students, the platform development is accompanied by Educational Design Research. This approach seeks a stronger connection of educational research and school practice by integrating experts’ and users’ feedback in all phases of the development. The platform will be evaluated in the frame of the DLR_School_Lab Oberpfaffenhofen and the GIS-Station – the Klaus-Tschira-Competence-Centre for Digital Geomedia at the Heidelberg University of Education.