Abstract
Environmental remote sensing has faced increasing satellite data availability, advanced algorithms for thematic analysis, and novel concepts of ground truth. For that reason, contents and concepts of learning and teaching remote sensing are constantly evolving. This eventually leads to the intuition of methodologically linking academic learning assignments with case-related scopes of application. In order to render case-related learning possible, smart teaching and interactive learning contexts are appreciated and required for remote sensing. That is due to the fact that those contexts are considered promising to trigger and gradually foster students’ comprehensive interdisciplinary thinking. To this end, the following contribution introduces the case-related concept of applying simulation games as a promising didactic format in teaching/learning assignments of remote sensing. As to methodology, participating students have been invited to take on individual roles bound to technology-related profiles (e.g., satellite-mission planning, irrigation, etc.) Based on the scenario, stakeholder teams have been requested to elaborate, analyze and negotiate viable solutions for soil moisture monitoring in a defined context. Collaboration has been encouraged by providing the protected, specifically designed remoSSoil-incubator environment. This letter-type paper aims to introduce the simulation game technique in the context of remote sensing as a type of scholarly teaching; it evaluates learning outcomes by adopting certain techniques of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL); and it provides food for thought of replicating, adapting and enhancing simulation games as an innovative, disruptive next-generation learning environment in remote sensing.
Highlights
Remote sensing is the fastest growing area in geographical sciences with increasing interdisciplinary approaches, including physics, biology and data science [1]
Presuming that learning assignments in the remote sensing of environment might be enhanced through applying simulation games, a progressive evaluation methodology has been applied in order to monitor and assess different stages of evolving expertise vis-à-vis soil moisture monitoring of remote sensing
Showing promising motivational effects on learning outcomes, this study of scholarly teaching makes a significant and innovative contribution, since it presents the transfer of simulation game methodology into remote sensing teaching and learning in higher education [6,7]
Summary
Remote sensing is the fastest growing area in geographical sciences with increasing interdisciplinary approaches, including physics, biology and data science [1]. Teaching in the field of remote sensing is still attributed with inert/non-productive knowledge which is considered highly specialized and technical, but hardly enables exchanging views across disciplinary borders Broadening this scope, is urgently required, since most challenges in the area of remote sensing application are gradually turning heterogeneous, i.e., involving different disciplinary approaches that reach beyond its own. Applying remote sensing higher education as selection criteria, 70 articles were selected from Web of Science Core Collection including three articles of the first data base request (remote sensing teaching as a key word). Simulation games provide a viable didactic approach of addressing environmental monitoring challenges; due to the flexible design they stipulate a promising option for teaching and learning [18,19,20,21,22,23]. Contributions of this study include: a) the presentation of the remoSSoil teaching concept and learning objectives to incorporate multi-source remote sensing and in situ data for soil moisture monitoring at regional scale (Section 2.1), b) the classroom set-up and evaluation procedure (Section 2.2), c) results and a comprehensive discussion of prospects and concerns for application of simulation games in teaching and learning remote sensing of the environment and the transfer of remoSSoil, in particular (Sections 3–5)
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