Informatie voor leerkrachten (in het Engels)

Lehrer
...during a teacher training
Photo: Isabelle Kollar


Through the interference of humans in the natural landscape, in the form of urbanisation, agricultural use, and mass tourism, the original image of landscape has been changed.
The Tutorial "Land Use and Land Use Change" is dedicated to these changes.

The Learning Tutorial is Divided in Four Chapters

Goals and Contents of the Tutorial "Land Use and Land Use Change"

With a short initiating "entrance to the themes", with which the students can understand the meaning of land change and land reclamation through a visual depiction of the well known case of the Palm Islands of Dubai - this should provide a basis to handle future content. The terms land use and land use change have been defined in an info box and the technical basis is presented.

Chapter 1 - Global Land Use Change - deals with the causes of change in land use and presents the potential vegetation distribution of the land cover. The students should learn how to predict future changes in land cover. Additional materials present the changes in concrete examples, such as fire clearance in the tropics, urbanisation processes in the case of selected mega cities and mass tourism in Tenerife. This supports not only the individual knowledge acquirement, but also the networked thought process of the students.

Chapter 2 - Urbanisation - pick out the world-wide population growth, especially, the growth of cities as a central theme. Reasons and effects of urbanisation, push and pull factors, as well as marginalisation will be examined in the following cases of the cities Los Angeles, Mexico City, Johannesburg, London, and Mumbai. The students should be able to recognize, next to the future development possibilities, the great meaning of the city growth with land use changes.

Chapter 3 - Syndromes of Global Change - arrives at naturally and anthropologically caused causes of land use. It is a form of a notice about the global importance of clinical pictures of the earth. The processses have been distributed into three groups: use, change, and disposal. Detailed examples deal with the fire clearance in the tropics, the aggradation of the Aral sea, mining in Chile, and the green houses in Almeria. The goal is to present the complexity of world-wide environmental changes.

Chapter 4 - Mass Tourism - is dedicated to the phenomenon of land use change through mass tourism. The exemplary case for this is the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. After the presentation of the climatologic and vegetation-geographic structure and facts of Tenerife, the effects of mass tourism through a time lapse of settlement development become evident. Next to the fundamental information and facts of the influence of mass tourism on Tenerife, the future development and effects of mass tourism there, in Spain, and in Germany are compared. The students will, through this exercise, also gain a comparison to their home land. In connection to climate change, the effects of tourism are illuminated and a softer tourism with ecological goals and sustainable travel methods are introduced. With personal experience, calculation of the flight costs, the reflection of one's own vacation behaviour with renowned quotes, the chapter connects the daily experiences of the students to the lesson.

Suggested Class Level

The learning tutorial was developed for students in high school. In grades 10-12 (students aged 16-19) the students can work interactively. It has been designed so that the students can complete the tasks alone, or in small groups and develop their own learning rhythms with guidance of the teachers during class or without aid. The units have been made open in the internet and can also be assigned as homework and free learning support.
The entire learning tutorial is additionally in English, French and German, and is also ideal for a lesson in a bilingual class.

Learning Goals for the Students:

The goal of the learning tutorial is the students' development of science competencies. Instead of a "dry lesson" with ordinary materials such as a text book, the interactive online materials and remote sensing can awaken the interest in scientific themes. The geography class should become very attractive to the students with these materials.
The learning tutorial presents the possibilities of earth observation with satellite images in the context of different themes. Satellite images present an unusual perspective for the students, through which the change in the ground view on the view from above. Through the evaluation of this data, the process of land use change will become visible. Additionally, the program allows the students to take in, from a different perspective, the complexity of environmental change.
The goal is also the visualisation and depiction of land use change with the help of manifold maps, diagrams, and satellite images.

Prior Knowledge of the Students

To insert the learning tutorial in a lesson, there is no prior geographical expertise needed. The content develops easily through the interactive activities, which do not need any explanation. New words will be defined in info boxes in the beginning, and background knowledge correlations will be depicted through extra materials. The contents will be introduced understandably and connect with one another.

The learning tutorial is interdisciplinary and contains the themes geography and biology. Through this, a subject-cross is inserted with remote sensing.

Additional Material

For a didactic work up there are extra materials and work sheets with answers and didactic commentary available.

It is possible to let the students do presentations on the tutorials after successfully working through a tutorial. The results of individual work in the classroom will become conversations and then open up to further discussions and transfer abilities.