Supported by the IEEE GRSS High School and Undergrad Student Outreach Program, the educational chairs of IGARSS 2021 developed a remote sensing school project targeting 16/17-year-old pupils in the third grade of secondary education in Flanders, Belgium.
The Green in the City project focused on the role of urban green in cities. Using dedicated course materials including knowledge clips, manuals and tutorials, and data sets for several cities in Flanders, the project offered hands-on training in basic RS and GIS skills. By exploring spectral reflectance properties of different materials, participants learned how to map urban green from satellite data.
They also learned how to transform image data into maps characterizing greenness and land surface temperature at neighborhood level. By linking these maps with census data (population density, age, income, level of education, housing, etc.) relationships between greenness, temperature and socio-demographic/housing characteristics were explored. The programme enabled teachers to address important themes related to the urban living environment, such as the need for urban green, the impact of climate warming, environmental justice issues and sustainable development of urban areas.
Over 500 students from 20 Flemish schools participated in the project that took place in the spring of 2021. Schools were challenged to present their research results in an English-spoken multimedia presentation, which was evaluated based on
Although participating is much more important than winning, we gladly announce the winning teams:
Congratulations to the three winners who will be invited with their class for a day visit to ESTEC, the European Space Agency and Technology Centre in Noordwijk (the Netherlands), after the summer 2021.
We would like to thank all participating students for their enthusiasm and for making this project a success! We also like to express our gratitude to the teachers, for taking the initiative to participate in the project and for inspiring their students all the way. Thanks to all of you the high school programme proved so rewarding that an international roll out is now on the cards.
Frank Canters
Frieke Van Coillie
Educational chairs IGARSS 2021
