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Many people use satellite images in their professional and everyday lives, and school curricula often require their use. Yet, the ways teachers actually use satellite images in the classroom is often limited, if they use them at all. The YCHANGE project trained teachers to use remote sensing data by themselves and to use it in their classrooms. The project partners created a remote sensing curriculum which suggests how teachers can develop their students' skills in this area of geography. This curriculum is based on existing research and school curricula. The project partners created and published sample learning units, and the project webpage also offered the possibility for teachers to publish student-created projects. YCHANGE training event participants in Switzerland and Germany filled out an online survey. Most participants said they improved their ability to read satellite images and use them in the classroom. However, participants' evaluation of the YCHANGE materials and training events was mixed. The study shows some differences among the Swiss language regions, and significant differences between Germany and Switzerland. For example, our training events introduced the participants to the web application BLIF. On average, the German participants liked BLIF, but the participants in Switzerland rated BLIF significantly worse. We therefore recommend that future research compare remote sensing, as well as other areas of geography education, among different countries and language regions.

Competence-orientation plays a meaningful role in many recent school curricula. But how are the theoretical and conceptual approaches of competence-orientation based on educational research interpreted by in-service teachers, teacher trainers and representatives of the school administration? And which approaches of competence-orientation are implemented in every day school life? Therefore the article focuses on the subjective concepts of competence-orientation of different participants (stakeholders at school, seminaries for teacher education and ministry of education) in the educational system. Initially, the individual topics and hypotheses are generated based on qualitative expert interviews with these stakeholders. The stakeholders at the seminaries for teacher education and the ministry of education suggest a strong use of media other than the licensed textbooks, or a different way of making use of the provided materials and tasks within the textbooks than it is intended. However, it seems that most inservice teachers stick to the combination of tasks and materials arranged within the textbooks. Thus suggests, that every day school lessons are not competence-oriented in the way, the stakeholders at seminaries for teacher education and at the ministry of education want them to be. One cause may be the textbooks, which should provide a new, different combination of tasks and materials for competence-based education to enable competence-based education in every day school life.

Komplexe gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen wie Klimawandel, globale Ungleichheiten und Verknappung natürlicher Ressourcen erfordern einen interdisziplinären Blick: Um sie verstehen und bearbeiten zu können, sind vielfältige Perspektiven und methodische Herangehensweisen notwendig. Daher ist interdisziplinäres Arbeiten ein wesentlicher Bestandteil des Konzepts einer Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE). Der Bildungsansatz soll Lernende dazu befähigen, verantwortungsbewusst zur Gestaltung einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung der Welt beizutragen. BNE muss auch an Hochschulen einen Platz haben, da diese als wichtige Ausbildungsstätten für zukünftige Fachkräfte und Entscheidungsträger*innen über eine große Strahlkraft in die Gesellschaft verfügen. Damit Hochschullehrende BNE umsetzen können, benötigen sie entsprechende hochschuldidaktische Angebote – diese stellen eine besondere Form wissenschaftlicher Weiterbildungen dar. In diesem Artikel wird anhand von Beispielen aus mehreren BNE-Weiterbildungen mit Teilnehmenden unterschiedlicher Disziplinen erörtert, welche Rahmenbedingungen für eine fruchtbare interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit notwendig sind, welche Erträge aus dieser erwachsen und welche Herausforderungen und Chancen dabei entstehen können.

Earth Science and Geography teacher preparation has developed to some degree along different lines, despite sharing many of the same issues, especially with regard to challenges in teacher education. The conference "International Perspectives on Geography and Earth Science Teacher Education 2016" wanted to bring together educators from both sciences from around the world together to move the debate about these challenges forward. From the research presentations and the discussion during and after the conference, several issues emerged: (1) the importance of the two subjects not losing sight of each other; (2) the need to overcome language barriers; (3) the question of standards/objectives for geography teacher education (e.g. with regard to teachers' (P)CK); (4) media used in teacher education (including ways to improve them); (5) ways to improve learners' geography and earth science content knowledge; and (6) strategies to increase teachers' professionalism. We already suggest some specific steps teacher educators in the two fields can take to improve teacher education. Yet, it also became clear that more research and strengthening international collaborations are needed, as well as better communication of the results of these efforts to practitioners.

The incidence and magnitude of hazards in Africa are escalating. Extant knowledge base of disaster risk (DR) trends, factors, and hotspots is lacking for the continent. Here we applied random forest machine learning regressions, spatial stratified heterogeneity, and hotspot analyses on INFORM data to identify DR patterns, factors and interactions, and notable risk hotspots. We show that although DR is generally decreasing in Africa, the Eastern, Southern, and Western regions record increasing DR. Physical exposure to floods, epidemics, and violent conflicts are hazard drivers of DR in Africa. Other significant DR drivers are mostly clustered under vulnerable groups and poor infrastructural coping capacities. Human hazards interact with other factors, exhibiting the highest influences on DR. Precisely, 19 out of 53 African countries in this study are DR hotspots. Eritrea is identified as a new hotspot. Targeted policies, resilience building, vulnerability reduction measures and comprehensive sustainability‐infused solutions are required for DR reduction and sustainable development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in an urban planet. As the world continues to urbanize, urban development that support the health and wellbeing of city dwellers is far more important than ever before to achieve sustainable development targets. This study explores the complex relationship among urban planning, city growth, and health as critical drivers of sustainable development in the rapidly growing nodal city of Akure, Nigeria. The study provides a four-decade spatio-temporal model of urban Land Use Land Cover (LULC) changes in Akure between the years 1984 and 2023 from acquired Landsat satellite imageries. The result shows more than 20% net change increase in developed LULC classes between the study years. A strong positive correlation exists between the years covered in the analyses and urban development (r = 0.93, p = 0.002), and a strong negative relationship with the forest land use (r = -0.94, p = 0.002) with potential debilitating impacts on residents' health, green infrastructures and the city's sustainability in the future. Furthermore, results of key informant interviews (KIIs) of officials of the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development (MPPUD) in Akure, Ondo State, unveil various views on the "place of health" in urban planning practices in Akure. A lack of synergy between urban planners and public health practitioners in the city and limiting scope of functions of urban planning on the impact of health in Akure were observed. Thus, we recommend the integration of a sustainable urban planning approach as a guide to manage the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]