Leveraging educational partnerships to integrate education for sustainable development into university geoscience curriculum

Applied earth observation (EO) science initiatives seek to integrate EO into decision-making processes addressing environmental challenges among various thematic areas such as food and water security, natural disasters and ecosystem management. The demand for the application of EO to sustainable development has recently increased as the field of EO undergoes an open science revolution (Mathieu and Aubrecht, 2018), beginning with NASA’s Terra MODIS instrument data being made open in 2000 (Huang et al., 2004). The platforms to process and analyze this data have also become open, such as NASA Worldview and Giovanni (Acker and Leptoukh, 2007). Commercial analysis platforms like Google Earth Engine are also reducing some barriers to processing large volumes of EO data (Gorelick et al., 2017). Due to this increased openness, countries with limited capital are more able to integrate EO science into their decision-making processes in the aforementioned thematic areas. International applied science initiatives aim to capitalize on this open-source revolution, leveraging existing concepts created by the international development community such as capacity building and theory of change.

Capacity building is a “process through which individuals, groups, institutions, organizations and societies obtain, strengthen, and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives” (UNDP, 2009, p. 4). While this is one of many definitions of capacity building, there is a consensus that it is demand-driven, operates over the long term and contributes to sustainable development (Alley and Negretto, 1999). Theory of change – a popular development framework – builds upon the concepts of logic planning models, program analysis and program theory (Stein and Valters, 2012). Different approaches to theory of change have been used, with some viewing it as an ongoing reflective process, and others taking a more systematic view, analyzing how change occurs and defining the role of external actors in enacting change (James, 2011). ITC and SERVIR use different approaches as described below to accomplish our common goal of developing the capacity of the international community to apply EO to address environmental challenges.

SERVIR is a U.S. government initiative that collaborates with countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to use Earth Observations in decision-making. As a component of NASA’s Earth Action Program, SERVIR complements Earth Action’s goal of advancing the application of Earth Science for societal benefit, addressing critical issues including food security, extreme weather, and natural resource management (SERVIR, 2020). SERVIR is implemented through regional hubs in collaboration with an Applied Sciences Team (AST) and the Science Coordination Office (SCO).

SERVIR’s work is guided by our theory of change, which states that:

SERVIR’s theory of change is enacted through the co-development of services, which address an environmental challenge by supporting a specific decision-making process with operational data or tools. Tools can consist of websites and/or code repositories allowing users to request, visualize or collect EO data. A service is planned in three phases: consultation and needs assessment, service design and service delivery (SERVIR, 2021). In service design, the service is co-developed by the hub, the SCO, the AST, stakeholders and users. A user is any individual that consults a service to support a decision-making process (e.g. employees of government departments, NGO program managers) (SERVIR, 2021). In service delivery, the service is fully implemented and owned by the user’s organization. Capacity building is conducted throughout the process to further develop users’ EO competencies and thus make better informed decisions influenced by SERVIR services.

ITC is the Faculty of Geo-information science and EO at the University of Twente, and was founded in 1950 as the Netherlands’s contribution to the United Nations Development Program. Originally named the International Training Center for Aerial Survey, ITC became a faculty of the University of Twente in 2010 (University of Twente, 2020). ITC aims to integrate and balance education, research and capacity building to ensure geospatial solutions applicable to global challenges. ITC builds capacities at three levels: individual, organizational and the institutional context the former two operate within (University of Twente, 2020). ITC pursues organizational capacity development through international projects and the establishment of academic networks like the Global Land Tool Network (Todorovski and Whittal, 2022). For example, ITC’s “Social Inclusion and Energy Management for Informal Urban Settlements” project worked with Higher Education Institution (HEIs) in Ethiopia to build organizational capacity to address informal urban settlements. Within the individual level, capacity is developed via postgraduate diploma programs, trainings and short courses (Todorovski and Whittal, 2022). ITC equips students with cutting-edge EO knowledge along with innovation and leadership skills through Project-Based Learning (PBL), a pedagogical approach that engages students in a situation that is real, relevant and related to their environment (University of Twente, 2020).

ESD is “education that seeks to balance human and economic well-being with cultural traditions and respect for the Earth’s natural resources” (Wals and Kieft, 2010). Four objectives are crucial to ESD:

1. to improve access and retention in quality basic education,

2. to reorient existing educational programs to address sustainability,

3. to increase public understanding and awareness of sustainability, and

4. providing training to all sectors of the workforce (United Nations, 1992).

ESD situates environmental education – education regarding the preservation of humans’ environmental relationship via the responsible stewardship of resources (Wals and Kieft, 2010) – in a broader view of sociocultural and sociopolitical considerations such as quality of life, equity and poverty (UNESCO, 2006).

The ESD movement built upon the consensus established at the 1977 Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education that environmental education must consider socioeconomic, cultural and ethical dimensions (United Nations, 1998). This led to Agenda 21, a global plan of action regarding sustainable development (United Nations, 2015; United Nations, 1992). The agenda outlined ESD’s objectives and argued that environment and development education should be integrated in all disciplines (United Nations, 1992). Following Agenda 21, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approved an initiative in its 1995 program (United Nations, 1994) that was later termed ESD (UNESCO, 1997). In 2015, the international development community acknowledged ESD as a key method in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ESD is recognized as a target of SDG 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable education by promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all (United Nations, 2015). Some insist that ESD is an “enabler” of all SDGs as it develops a sustainably conscious workforce across all disciplines (United Nations, 2017).

Examining challenges of ESD can help us understand why educators continue to miss the mark of ESD 30 years after its popularization, and acknowledging its drivers can help us make strides forward. While HEIs have led by example by making campuses more sustainable (Tilbury, 2011), have made strong commitments to ESD (Holmberg and Samuelsson, 2006), and have created new degrees and courses in sustainability (Ryan and Cotton, 2013), HEIs have fallen short of implementing ESD in higher education, especially when it comes to doing so across all disciplines (Rieckmann, 2017; Filho, 2011; Tilbury, 2011).

Drivers of ESD exist at the individual, institutional and supra-institutional levels. At the individual level, instructors’ enthusiastic action within their own sphere of influence is crucial to ESD implementation (UNESCO, 2005; Holmberg and Samuelsson, 2006). Key institutional drivers include high-level institutional funding and staff support/engagement (Fiselier et al., 2018). Beyond the institution, national ESD implementation strategies (Fiselier et al., 2018) and partnerships drive the integration of ESD into curriculum and research (Rieckmann, 2017). External partners provide students with exposure to a real-world environmental challenge and the opportunity to use that knowledge practically via PBL (Bacon et al., 2011; Brundiers et al., 2010). PBL involves two components: action-oriented learning – where learners engage in action and then reflect on their experience (Rieckmann, 2017) – and learning based on real-world challenges. Both components are recognized as key pedagogical approaches to implement ESD (Rieckmann, 2017).

Despite these drivers, ESD faces institutional challenges such as a misunderstanding of concepts surrounding sustainable development and how it relates to one’s discipline (Gale et al., 2015; UNESCO, 2005; Fiselier et al., 2017) and disciplinary silos that limit the interdisciplinarity demanded by ESD (Gale et al., 2015). There are also personal barriers: overcrowded curriculum, high work pressure, and a lack of structured time for curriculum development (Verhulst and Lambrechts, 2015; Holmberg and Samuelsson, 2006). Thus, educators require new approaches beyond pre- and in-service training (Rieckmann, 2017).

The authors use the term “educational partnerships” to refer to collaboration between HEIs and external partners. “External partner” refers to an organization other than the HEI. These can consist of broad partnerships where HEIs participate in scientific networks or receive external funding, or smaller partnerships where HEIs collaborate with a non-educational institution to enhance their curriculum and/or research.

Examples of broad partnerships include the Mediterranean Education Initiative for the Environment and Sustainability, Uppsala University’s International Science Program, the University of Dar es Salaam’s partnership with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Australia’s relationship with the University of the South Pacific. These efforts combine ESD and capacity building, offering training of lecturers, funded research projects, curriculum co-development and knowledge sharing workshops (Pain et al., 2018; Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development, The Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus and Ministry of Education and Culture, 2019; Commonwealth of Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2008; Högfeldt et al., 2019; Richter et al., 2021).

Smaller external partners provide HEIs with real-world problems for students to research for capstone projects, (Brundiers et al., 2010; Bacon et al., 2011) or co-develop curriculum. Regarding curriculum development, institutions have collaborated by jointly developing course(s) (Tasdemir and Gazo, 2020; Högfeldt et al., 2019), or an entire degree program (Carlson, 1988). However, the literature is limited in terms of collaborative curriculum co-development on a scale smaller than an individual course.

While broad partnerships may be key to addressing institutional challenges of ESD, here the authors discuss a case study and framework of a small-scale partnership that catalyzes drivers and mitigates challenges of ESD. The authors present a novel approach to curriculum development via educational partnerships where an external partner (SERVIR) supplements existing courses at an HEI (ITC) with co-developed curriculum materials. ITC and SERVIR began working together in 2015, holding seminars on impact and capacity building. Our two organizations formally partnered in 2018, acknowledging our common goal of building international capacity to apply EO science to environmental challenges. In 2021, the authors launched the Curriculum Development Initiative – the subject of this study – aiming to supplement existing ITC courses with curriculum materials involving SERVIR’s geospatial tools.

The authors used a practical approach known as the systematization of experiences, which uses qualitative and quantitative methods from all participants of an educational or developmental project to derive conclusions about the experience (Holliday, 2012). Systematization of experiences can be used through sequential steps, including the definition of research tasks, project design, implementation processes and evaluation of the project (Holliday, 2012).

Our research task was a pragmatic one: to determine whether our educational partnership could help better realize ITC and SERVIR’s common goal to build capacity in EO through the curriculum development initiative. The curriculum development initiative objectives are to:

1. Equip future EO practitioners to apply digital, open-source EO tools developed by SERVIR, simultaneously

2. Strengthening ITC’s approach to ESD by

   • employing PBL; and

   • building the capacity of ITC instructors to independently integrate SERVIR tools into their coursework.

The authors paired SERVIR tools with courses in ITC’s master’s program in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (M-GEO). The authors targeted courses with a need that could be filled by a SERVIR tool, adding value to the course and enhancing its ESD approach.

Acknowledging the existing burden on instructors to incorporate ESD into the classroom, the authors strove to facilitate instructors to incorporate SERVIR tools in their courses with limited effort in the short term while building their capacity to do so over the long term. As such, curriculum development and implementation were initially led by SERVIR in the first year with crucial oversight from the ITC instructor, with the eventual goal of the instructor independently integrating the tool in future iterations of the course. The authors placed PBL at the forefront of the project, planning to communicate SERVIR’s approaches to relevant environmental challenges and use action-oriented learning to build student capacity to apply newfound knowledge to affect positive change. SERVIR developed and implemented the Curriculum Development Initiative Framework (Figure 1) which includes six phases: Assessment, Outreach, Development, Review, Implementation and Evaluation. The assessment and outreach phases paired four SERVIR tools with ITC courses. The Development, Review, Implementation and Evaluation phases were then carried out iteratively for each tool/course pair.

The authors selected SERVIR tools that can be implemented anywhere in the world to promote action-oriented learning, then judged tools on five criteria based on the project objectives:

1. the quantity of documented use cases of the tool by users;

2. the quantity of peer-reviewed publications documenting the tool;

3. the number of existing training materials, tutorials, and videos;

4. the accessibility and intuitiveness of each tool’s interface; and

5. the degree of background knowledge necessary to use each tool.

Criterion 1 ensures ESD by illustrating the gravity of the environmental challenge the tool addresses. Criteria 2–5 determine the tool’s openness so students can work with the tool beyond the completion of the course. Criterion 2 ensures the tool’s methods are sufficiently open and peer-reviewed, allowing students to independently learn about the tool and its methods. Criterion 3 determines whether the tool has sufficient resources for students beyond those created for this project. Finally, Criteria 4 and 5 ensure that the tool matches the capacity of the student at the beginning of the course. SERVIR evaluated candidate tools based on the Curriculum Development Readiness Rubric, excluding the tool from the project if it scored a 1 in any category, or scored less than a 3 when averaged over all criteria (Table 1).

In the second step of the assessment phase, all M-GEO courses were assigned a “fitness rating” based on the relevance of their learning outcomes to the SERVIR tools associated with that course’s theme. Courses that met a certain fitness rating threshold were incorporated into a “tool-course matrix” (Table 2) that organized each course and tool according to its thematic area.

The outreach phase sought to determine ITC instructors’ interest in the project, as the authors aimed to add value to existing courses rather than place additional burdens on teachers. The authors planned to organize meetings with instructors where SERVIR could demonstrate the functionality of the tool and instructors could identify their course’s data and software needs. The authors planned to then make a “go/no-go decision”, where SERVIR and ITC decided if they wished to proceed with the tool/course pair.

Curriculum materials consisting of a presentation, live demonstration and other modules were co-developed to fill the need identified by the ITC instructor. SERVIR used the PBL component focusing on a local environmental challenge by first giving a lecture on the SERVIR tool and the problem it addresses. The action-oriented learning element of PBL was then accomplished by having students interactively use a SERVIR tool as part of the coursework. The action-oriented materials consisted of user manuals for web-based tools and Google Colaboratory notebooks including text and code for code-based tools.

The curriculum materials were reviewed and edited by subject matter experts at SERVIR as well as the ITC instructor. In the implementation phase, SERVIR delivered a presentation and live demonstration of tools, and a “practical session” walking students through the modules in some courses. SERVIR was available to meet with students and answer questions via office hours. One instructor incorporated materials developed by SERVIR in an additional lecture. The evaluation phase is described in Section 2.4.

The curriculum development initiative pilot was implemented in ITC’s 2022–23 academic year, which is organized into four quartiles. Four SERVIR tools were integrated in four ITC courses during this pilot year. In the assessment phase, the judgment of SERVIR tools on the curriculum development readiness rubric and of ITC courses on their fitness for approval resulted in the narrowing of 55 SERVIR tools and 79 M-GEO courses to seven tools and 17 courses.

In the outreach phase, ITC contacted faculty to gauge their interest in the project. This resulted in a meeting between SERVIR and two ITC departments, where SERVIR presented the history of the tools, the curriculum development readiness rubric and the tool-course matrix. Three instructors expressed interest in the project, resulting in one-on-one meetings. An additional instructor was later engaged via e-mail. All four instructors and SERVIR agreed to proceed with the project after additional meetings.

In the review phase, feedback from both parties suggested adding information regarding the environmental problem necessitating the creation of the tool/service. SERVIR often suggested adding methodological information and providing additional resources for students. The instructor often provided pedagogical guidance regarding the strategy for teaching code-based tools, specifically to provide code that can be run as-is rather than requiring the student to write code themselves. This served to emphasize the application of the code and the interpretation of results rather than programming syntax and scripting. The development and implementation phases of the project for each tool/course pair are described below.

In Quartile 1, SERVIR’s ClimateSERV tool was integrated into the “Quantitative Remote Sensing of Vegetation Parameters” course. ClimateSERV is a website allowing users to download, visualize and analyze biophysical and meteorological data in both historical and forecast modes (Limaye et al., 2017; Ashmall et al., 2019). ClimateSERV was created because long-term ground observations of rainfall and soil moisture are sparse in SERVIR regions, making it difficult to assess the severity of droughts. The Kenya Meteorological Service’s Kericho office uses ClimateSERV to downscale their seasonal climate outlooks for farmers’ use in planning crop cultivars and planting times (Limaye et al., 2017; Ashmall et al., 2019).

During the outreach phase, an instructor noted a need in her course for students to determine local soil moisture to input to the PROSAIL radiative transfer model (Darvishzadeh et al., 2008), which students use to estimate biophysical parameters. In the implementation phase, SERVIR delivered a lecture discussing the environmental challenge and use case noted above and demonstrated the data sets and analysis modes of ClimateSERV. Students then engaged in action-oriented learning, using ClimateSERV to estimate a reasonable soil moisture value to use in the PROSAIL model.

In Quartile 2, the “From Data to Geo-Information for Natural Resources Management” course featured Collect Earth Online (CEO), SERVIR’s satellite image viewing and interpretation platform (Saah et al., 2019). CEO provides open access to photo-interpretation of high-resolution satellite data. This allows countries with limited capital to implement high quality land cover mapping workflows and maintain commitments to frameworks like the REDD+ program, which requires member countries to report their carbon stocks. Nepal’s Forest Research Training Centre used CEO to obtain reference data to train a supervised machine learning classifier, creating annual land cover maps (Aryal et al., 2019).

During the outreach phase, the instructor expressed an interest in having students use CEO for image interpretation in their course. This course examines the environmental impact of cocoa plantations in the Goaso Forest district of Ghana. The collection of high-resolution satellite imagery was a major challenge in the course. Thus, the instructor saw CEO as a way to simplify the collection of reference data. SERVIR delivered lectures on the environmental challenge, our approach to address it via CEO, and on good practices for image interpretation and project design. SERVIR demonstrated how CEO data can train and validate a supervised machine learning classifier. Students worked with modules to create reference data for a machine learning classifier and assess the accuracy of geospatial products.

SERVIR’s Hydrologic Remote Sensing Analysis for Floods Tool (HYDRAFloods) was used in the “Observing and Modelling Surface Water in a Changing World” course. HYDRAFloods is an open-source Python application built on Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud, allowing for the creation of surface water maps derived from EO data. HYDRAFloods was co-developed by SERVIR SCO and SERVIR Southeast Asia to address seasonal floods (Markert et al., 2020) and has performed favorably in global assessments of surface water mapping (Tottrup et al., 2022). SERVIR Southeast Asia integrated flood maps generated by HYDRAFloods into the World Food Program’s Platform for Real-time Impact and Situation Monitoring (PRISM) – a disaster decision support tool that combines geophysical and socioeconomic data – helping to plan the distribution of food and cash aid to over 200,000 people affected by the floods (Ramthun et al., 2021).

In the outreach phase, the instructor indicated a desire to conduct a water body detection exercise but was troubled by students’ lack of coding experience. Thus, he saw HYDRAFloods as a solution because it allows students to generate products from optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data sets without having to program each step end-to-end. SERVIR lectured on the above environmental challenge, our approach to address it, and various workflows offered by HYDRAFloods. Then, SERVIR walked through modules regarding surface water mapping using both optical and SAR data. Finally, students applied HYDRAFloods to monitor changes of Lake Naivasha in Kenya and Lake Xau in Botswana in a practical session.

In the final quartile of the pilot year, SERVIR’s Radar Mining and Monitoring Tool (RAMI) was used in the “Forest Monitoring and Carbon Stock Estimation with Multi-Source Remote Sensing in the Context of Climate Change” course. RAMI is a code repository developed by SERVIR’s Amazonia hub to address deforestation caused by mining in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon (Becerra et al., 2025). RAMI uses the Omnibus Q-test change detection algorithm to automatically generate deforestation alerts based on Sentinel-1 SAR images (Villa et al., 2024). These alerts are uploaded to a website and included in newsletters allowing Peru’s Ministry of the Environment to combat illicit deforestation.

Two instructors saw this tool as filling a need in the course for a SAR-based forest monitoring tool. While the instructors had prepared a demonstration of an optical workflow for forest monitoring, there was no such workflow for SAR. Thus, they saw an opportunity to use RAMI to illustrate different contexts in which SAR or optical data may be more suitable to a researcher’s objectives. SERVIR gave a lecture on the above environmental challenge and operational approach. Then students worked through interactive Google Colaboratory notebooks covering the theoretical background of RAMI as well as its application to estimate carbon emissions caused by deforestation in Madre de Dios.

The authors determined our success in meeting our objectives through optional quantitative questionnaires distributed to students and instructors, as well as qualitative conversations with ITC instructors. Our success in meeting our objective to equip EO practitioners to apply EO tools to environmental challenges was determined by student responses to questionnaires, specifically if students could work with the tool, if the tool was helpful, and if they will use it in the future. Our success in meeting our objective to use PBL was determined through qualitative conversations with ITC instructors to determine if students were engaged with the tool and the degree to which they used the tool in their coursework. Our success in meeting our objective to build instructor capacity to independently integrate SERVIR tools in coursework was determined by instructor responses to questionnaires.

Thirty-nine students and four instructors participated in the curriculum development initiative pilot. Questionnaire responses were obtained from 19 of 39 students and all four instructors. Thirteen of 19 students found the curriculum materials either moderately or very easy to work through, 17 out of 19 students indicated that the tool was either moderately or very helpful for its stated purpose. All students indicated that they wish to use SERVIR tools in their future thesis or course work. One student used ClimateSERV for thesis research to evaluate the influence of precipitation on farmers’ choices of maize cropping patterns (Jepkosgei, 2023).

Discussions with ITC instructors provided further insights. One instructor felt confident independently implementing the SERVIR tool in their future curriculum. Another felt comfortable covering the tool but wanted SERVIR personnel to be available to help with questions and issues. Two instructors wished to continue with the same manner of implementation. For three ITC courses, the SERVIR tool was explicitly used in each students’ final project. However, for the other course, no student used RAMI in the final project, as students were free to pick any workflow learned in the course. All instructors remarked on the immense value in showing students an environmental challenge and an operational approach to mitigate it. Two instructors indicated that this project introduced students to the Google Earth Engine computing platform, remarking that it was a valuable skill for students to learn.

The student questionnaire responses indicate that the authors built capacity for more than 2 / 3 of students to use SERVIR tools. The result that the tools were helpful to many respondents indicates that the authors built capacity not just to use SERVIR tools but to apply them to solve environmental challenges. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that 100% of respondents indicated that they wish to continue using the tool and that one student used a SERVIR tool in her thesis research. The instructor questionnaire responses indicate that the authors were moderately unsuccessful in building the capacity of ITC instructors to independently integrate SERVIR tools in their courses as only one of four instructors felt that they could integrate the tool after the first year of the project.

The positive experience of ITC instructors regarding the lectures on SERVIR’s approach to local environmental challenges qualitatively supports the notion that the authors were successful in implementing the element of PBL centered on an environmental challenge. The fact that students used SERVIR tools for projects in three courses and one student used a tool in her thesis supports the conclusion that the authors were successful in implementing the action-oriented learning element of PBL. Instructors’ reflection that this was some students’ first interaction with geospatial coding implies that external partners can provide students with skills they would not otherwise receive. Our results corroborate UNESCO’s and other researchers’ finding that the first and most effective place instructors can incorporate ESD in their courses is within their own classroom and curriculum area (UNESCO, 2005; Holmberg and Samuelsson, 2006). This project would not have been possible without ITC instructors’ crucial co-development of curriculum materials and generous provision of time and space in their existing curriculum to incorporate SERVIR tools.

Because less than half of students answered the questionnaire, the conclusions the authors drew therefrom are potentially biased in that students who were more positively engaged with the material may have been more likely to complete the questionnaire. Furthermore, the fact that no student used RAMI in the final project for this course limits the conclusions the authors were able to draw on this implementation of PBL. Although our findings generally support UNESCO’s argument that educational partnerships are key in linking ESD and curriculum, challenges remain in bringing real-world challenges and operational approaches to courses while simultaneously filling an existing software/data need for the course. It was challenging to balance the building of instructor capacity to independently integrate SERVIR tools into their courses with the desire to not overwhelm them with additional work. Educational partnerships in international settings are further complicated by time zone differences, which limits a partnership’s effectiveness (Richter et al., 2021).

This project assumed that students were familiar with remote sensing fundamentals, so curricula did not elaborate on the characteristics of primary data sets or instruct students on troubleshooting unexpected results. Cloud-based platforms and interactive notebooks such as those presented here offer instructors and students the advantage of more rapid experimentation and PBL, but they do not replace understanding of the fundamental theory and proper applications of EO data (Crowley et al., 2023).

SERVIR will continue to support the integration of its tools into ITC coursework by continuing to engage with instructors, and by updating curriculum materials that may become outdated due to updates of their dependencies (e.g. Python, Google Earth Engine). SERVIR will also add to the RAMI curriculum materials to allow students to apply the workflow more easily in their own region of interest. SERVIR and ITC will also explore expansion of the project to more SERVIR tools and ITC courses. SERVIR will also engage with each SERVIR hub to share lessons learned and challenges faced in curriculum development activities across the SERVIR network. SERVIR is developing free and open courses regarding ClimateSERV, CEO and HYDRAFloods, for a virtual learning platform in development by ITC. The authors expect future use of these tools will be enabled by having these courses findable and accessible on public fora.

From a systematization of experiences of an educational project, the authors conclude that collaborative curriculum development with an external partner can build students’ capacities to use industry-relevant tools and competencies and can aid implementation of ESD in the classroom. Furthermore, the authors conclude that this project strengthened both organizations’ capacity building approach. SERVIR’s capacity building strategy was bolstered by the growth of our tools’ users beyond our traditional network, benefitting from ITC’s global influence and excellence in education. ITC’s capacity building method was improved by complementing their approach to ESD via supplementation of curriculum with examples of environmental challenges and operational workflows used to address those challenges.

This work builds upon the current body of collaborative curriculum development work between a HEI and external partner by providing a smaller-scale approach involving the supplementation of existing courses with co-developed, open access curriculum materials. In this case the curriculum focuses on strengthening the university partner’s approach to ESD, offering low-hanging fruit for instructors to bring real-world environmental challenges and their operational solutions to the classroom. The authors saw limited success in building instructor capacity to independently integrate external partner tools into coursework within one year, indicating that even small-scale approaches to incorporate ESD into the classroom require significant time and effort from instructors. A balance must be carefully maintained in implementing ESD in this manner, as building the capacity of instructors to independently integrate open tools into their curriculum comes at the cost of their valuable time and effort. Our framework can serve as an example for other HEIs wishing to engage external partners, championing ESD and building the capacity of their students to work with state-of-the-art technologies and workflows.

The authors thank Jeroen Verplancke for connecting us with ITC instructors and Amin Shakya for porting HYDRAFloods materials to a separate platform. The authors also thank Daniel Irwin, Ashutosh Limaye and Robert Griffin for direction in the planning and execution of this project. The authors thank the following members of SERVIR Science Coordination Office for assistance in reviewing the curriculum materials: Billy Ashmall, Brent Roberts, Meryl Kruskopf, Diana West, Katie Walker, Lauren Carey, Jacob Abramowitz, Jake Ramthun, Natalia Bermudez, Stefanie Mehlich, Emily Adams, Stephanie Jiménez, Vanesa Martín-Arias, Alexandre Goberna, Emil Cherrington, Francisco Delgado, Kel Markert, Biplov Bhandari and Amanda Markert.

The authors thank Karen Dyson, Karis Tenneson, Andrea Puzzi Nicolau and Crystal Wespestad for guidance regarding the development of Collect Earth Online Curriculum Development materials; Sidney Novoa, Milagros Becerra and Lucio Villa for help regarding the development of curriculum materials based on RAMI, and their authorship of capacity building materials regarding RAMI; and Franz Meyer for the authorship of educational resources that were vital to the development of curriculum materials for HYDRAFloods and RAMI.

Funding: Funding for this work was provided through the cooperative agreement 80MSFC22N0004 between NASA and The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). SERVIR is a U.S. government initiative of NASA.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.

All curriculum materials developed for this project are open source and can be accessed via the following link: https://github.com/SERVIR/curriculum_development_initiative, and are associated with the following doi: 10.5281/zenodo.11267739