Green skills

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our planet. We are already seeing the repercussions of rising temperatures, and if current trends persist, these impacts have the potential to become increasingly frequent and severe. Climate change and sustainable development are highly complex topics, but understanding the scientific basis, the evidence, and the implications for communities are critical for enabling a successful green transition and sustainable future.

Unfortunately, our educational systems have so far yet to meet the demand for equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills to effectively teach climate and sustainable development within their respective subject. According to the European School Education Platform’s 2020 “Survey on climate education”, two-thirds of teachers cite a lack adequate training as inhibiting their ability to teach climate issues, whilst half cite a lack of easily accessible resources on climate topics.

GEO-Academy is determined to change this. Here’s how we’ll do it:

  • By providing teachers with the training and resources in covering climate and sustainability concepts across diverse subjects. These resources will be tailored to align with teachers’ curricular demands and are rooted in evidence-based pedagogical models. Through this, we will empower teachers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively educate and inspire students.
  • By building a suite of tools connected to digital and spatial competencies, teachers can use real-world examples and case studies to demonstrate climate concepts to their students.
  • By forming a community of like-minded teachers across Europe, committed to education for sustainable development, GEO-Academy will support teachers to share best practices and examples, fostering collaborative learning and creating a robust network for ongoing professional development.

In 2024 we will offer our first training activities, including a Summer School in Greece in June (Erasmus+ KA1 eligible). We will have more to share on this, and more, very soon. If you or anyone you know is an educator and is interested in joining the GEO-Academy, keep an eye on our socials, and be sure to keep an eye on our website: www.geoacademy.eu.

“GEO-Academy: Developing Teachers Spatial Skills for Climate Change and Sustainable Development Education”

On 14 October 2024, GEO-Academy’s project partner, Eurisy, attended the International Astronautical Congress 2024 in Milan, Italy, which welcomed more than 10.000 experts from the space industry, research and the institutions, and presented the GEO-Academy project, its objectives and achievements to a large space community.

GEO-Academy was presented during the “From Space to Safety: An Analysis of End-User Experiences with Satellite-based Services for Disaster Risk Management” session with an oral presentation entitled “Developing Teachers Spatial Skills for Climate Change and Sustainable Development Education”.

GEO-Academy’s presentation introduced the project and its objective to empower critical engagement with the complexity, contradictions, and uncertainty associated with sustainable development, as teachers should be supported in developing competencies that enable them to critically and constructively address the challenges associated with empowering our society to participate in sustainable development. It also included a presentation of the project’s core activities, including:

  • GEO-Academy Unified Competence Framework : The development of environmental and climate change awareness activities such as ad hoc training to allow teachers to acquire new key competencies (digital, green, spatial).
  • GEO-Concepts: The integration of digital skills related to the use of the current and future geo-technologies into the educational practices.
  • Geospatial Technologies : The utilisation of digital technologies through the creation and use of innovative GIS, RS, and EO tools, applications and modelling schemes.
  • GEO-Academy Pedagogical Framework : Access to new and innovative teaching tools, and problem-based educational approaches through teacher training and professional development programmes.

At last, the presentation consisted of a short overview of the GEOBSERVE platform, a virtual meeting space for teachers where they can exchange best practices, and where new materials and lessons are stored and distributed through the GEO-Academy Hubs. The aims of GEOBSERVE are twofold: collect learning materials, and create a peer-to-peer community, where good practices can be exchanged. As such, the GEOBSERVE Platform serves as the entry point for teachers and schools, who want to interact with the hubs, whilst the GEO-Academy website will remain the main information channel of the project.

The presentation of GEO-Academy at the IAC 2024 therefore represented a great opportunity to disseminate the project’s objectives and recent achievements, such as the GEOBSERVE platform. Stay tuned for more GEO-Academy’s presentations and learn more about the ongoing project’s progress!

 

 

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