Digital Earth Education

Digital Earth (DE) education provides students with geospatial knowledge and skills to locate, measure, and solve geographic problems on Earth’s surface. The rapid development of geospatial technology has promoted a new vision of DE to embrace data infrastructure, social networks, citizen science, and human processes on Earth. The high demand for a geospatial workforce also calls for an ever-changing, diverse form of learning experiences. Limited efforts, however, have been made regarding DE education to adapt to this changing landscape, with most interventions falling short of expectations. This chapter gives an overview of current teaching and learning structures with DE technologies. Successes and obstacles for K-12 education are explored first, followed by classroom technologies and experiential learning and outreach exercises such as academic certificates and internships in higher education. Taking the geospatial intelligence model from the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) as an example, recent advancements in DE education for professional careers are described via its geospatial competencies, hierarchical frameworks, and credentials. In alignment with the principles of DE development, future DE education calls for an integrated learning framework of open data, real-world context, and virtual reality for better preparedness of our students in the geospatial world.