Interdisciplinary Teaching Using Satellite Images as a Way to Introduce Remote Sensing in Secondary School

• Main Authors: Daniel Dziob, Michał Krupiński, Edyta Woźniak, Ryszard Gabryszewski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Remote Sensing
• Subjects: STEM education; educational project; Sentinel-2; Copernicus; high school
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/18/2868

This article aims to meet two needs: (i) the need for skilled workers and students in the area of remote sensing and (ii) the need to make school science interesting for students. This article addresses both needs by proposing a project for high school students entitled “the Colors of Earth”. The main aim for students was to distinguish between different types of land cover via the creation of various false color band compositions from the satellite Sentinel-2. Achieving this goal requires knowledge from various subjects and enables their practical application via work performed using real data. The project was presented to 39 high-school teachers and 184 high-school students (K-9 and K-10) in the summer semester of the 2019/2020 school year, and their opinions about the project were collected. Overall, both students and teachers judged the project to be interesting, worth introducing to the school, and capable of influencing student opinions of science. In addition, introducing remote sensing elements during pre-university education can help meet the demands for students and workers to study Earth observation.