Earth observation education for Zero Hunger: A Massive Open Online Course towards achieving SDG #2 using EO

Abstract

Persisting hunger and malnourishment continue to be a problem of global concern, which recent climate change, as well as environmental and socio-economic crises and their impacts along the food chain further exacerbate. Earth observation (EO) holds the capacity to deliver large temporal and spatial coverage information that allow for better decision-making in food production and distribution. Furthermore, the rapidly increasing amount of freely available data and tools potentially enable an expanding user community to bring this information into practice. However, more people need access to EO education to realize this potential. EO Connect (funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research) addresses this demand by developing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) towards the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger. Since a conventional course can barely reflect the comprehensiveness of SDG #2 regarding both content and the people involved in achieving the goal, the Zero Hunger MOOC leverages modern learning approaches in a non-linear, adaptive learning environment to cater to a large audience and diverse target groups, and to their different scopes and levels of desired learning outcomes. The use of micro-content, drip-feeding and feedback-guided course development shall ensure maximum effectiveness. To accomplish this ambitious endeavour, the Zero Hunger MOOC is developed with a community of stakeholders from the realms of EO, education, information technology, and food security. It builds on contents from this community which are adapted, streamlined and assembled to course modules, as well as on the expertise from the over 20 contributing universities, space agencies, national institutions and international organizations. While the Zero Hunger MOOC contributes to bridging the gap between the available EO technology and its application to increase food security, it likewise promotes stronger stakeholder connection in EO education.