Columbus Eye & LEIA

The "Columbus Eye" website contains information and teaching materials on the topics of Earth observation and astronautical space exploration. Here you will find an extensive archive of highlight videos of our home planet, which were recorded from the International Space Station ISS and prepared by our team of geographers with interesting information. They are ideal for geography lessons or simply for informative relaxation.

 Some of these videos and images from other special cameras on board the ISS have been turned into interactive teaching and learning materials for science lessons. Students can use them to expand and train their skills in the subjects of geography, maths, physics and computer science using practical, visually appealing and interdisciplinary application examples. The materials consist of worksheets that can be printed out and used with the freely available augmented reality app "Columbus Eye" or with freely available programming tools.

 The project "LEIA - Lunar and Geoinformation System-based Analyses in Schools" is the latest in a series of projects on the integration of Earth observation and space travel into school lessons, in which the materials on Columbus Eye were created. It aims to implement and utilize ideas and resources for the integration of astronautics, lunar and earth observation, and space exploration in the curriculum, by utilizing current developments and linking them to the goals of sustainable development. The main objective of the project is to enable students and teachers to perceive the moon not only as a "dead" neighbor of the living earth, but also as a tangible and experiential field of research and profession with high potential for innovation. Utilizing lunar remote sensing data and GIS (Lunaserv), as well as scientific background information, students will be introduced to lunar and Earth-Moon system-related topics during the school curriculum. Additionally, the use of the proven augmented reality application "Columbus Eye" and 3D modeling software (Tinkercad) will provide interactive and promising ways for students to learn about lunar topics.