Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Abstract:
From May to November 2014, the Astronaut Alexander Gerst fascinated the German public with his live-impressions from the ISS. During his mission “Blue Dot”, he used twitter and social media to share his view on our planet with the interested public. Earth observation suddenly became a recurrent topic in the news when Gerst presented cities at night, the aurora borealis, or Gaza at war. At the same time, NASA attached four commercial off-theshelf (COTS) cameras to the European Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station (ISS) observing the Earth in high definition quality. Once installed, the main purposes of NASA’s high definition earth viewing (HDEV) mission experiment started, i.e. testing the suitability of COTS HD cameras for upcoming space missions to Moon and Mars. The German educational project “Columbus Eye – Live-Imagery of the ISS in Schools” funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is the exclusive European partner of the HDEV experiment. Accomplished by the University of Bonn, the project is in charge of filing and publishing the HDEV data in a web portal, and, thus, making the data accessible to the public. However, the main goal of Columbus Eye is the didactical valorisetion of the HDEV data for a sustainable use in secondary school lessons. Hence, earth observation from the ISS carries on, even after Gerst returned to Earth. The fascinating views from above provide the basis for mediating knowledge about space travels and remote sensing linked to the Geographical curriculum. The short paper aims to present a) the didactical concept of Columbus Eye, b) the implementation of a learning portal about HDEV, and c) first experiences obtained during a nationwide road show in schools.