Transferring contact, technology- and field-based education to digital: methods and tools for geosciences training (DigiGeo)

After the sudden approach of COVID-19 pandemic to our lives during spring 2020, we have had to adjust daily routines following nation-wide anti-epidemic measures. Schools, including universities, were almost immediately closed. Impossibility of having ordinary lectures and practices led to substitution of contact-based education by various forms of online, virtual, or digital teaching. This project, supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, aims to innovate the way of online/digital/virtual Geosciences training. Specifically, DigiGeo project focuses on transferring contact, technology- and field-based education that usually inevitably requires physical attendance of teachers and learners. We explore and innovate practices in such learning tasks with the use of digital technologies, which will help to maintain the quality of the learning process in Geosciences.

Even more specifically, we focus on the digital transformation of three aspect of Geosciences education: 1) contact training in terms of hands-on lectures & practical exercises that need supervision; 2) contact training requiring demonstrations on physical equipment & device training; 3) field- and place-based geography education (field mapping and excursions).