digital-earth.eu: a European network for Digital Earth education

Abstract

European school education has so far, by and large, ignored geospatial developments like remote sensing, despite the fact that geo-technology has already become a significant employer. There are small pockets of intense activity, the challenge is to scale these developments up. This article reports on networking initiatives developed by the digital-earth.eu project to connect organisations involved in geospatial education like remote sensing, to share practice, provide advice and guidance on the use of geographic information to others and be a place for new initiatives.The digital-earth.eu network project raises awareness of the role of digital earth education, informing politicians of the significance of digital earth tools and technologies. digital-earth.eu also establishes a teacher support network infrastructure which incorporates geo-services for teachers such as the use of ArcGIS Online for Organisations and the European Environment Agency EyeonEarth platform.The project has made recommendation concerning the growing shortage of a geospatial workforce in Europe, the significance of open data and the usability of EU INSPIRE Directive. It suggests that Digital Earth education and training developments are urgently needed as part of the European Qualifications Framework. European policy makers have to be made much more aware of geospatial concepts and then actively encouraged by stakeholders to respond to them in policy terms through developing a "Digital Earth education for all".