This page lists training, education, and capacity development resources that the GEO Mountains community – as well as students, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers working in mountain settings more generally – might find useful.

It includes a "Mountain Sustainability" Education Programme that was developed with the support of GEO Mountains. Other materials developed entirely independently of the Initiative, including a compilation of papers targeted at budding mountain scientists, are also linked to. 

If you are aware of any other free and open training courses or capacity development opportunities that you would like to see featured here, please let us know.

Mountain Sustainability Education Programme

We are excited to share our new education program on Mountain Sustainability. The course was developed in collaboration with Sea to Sky Gondola, GEO Mountains, the Mountain Research Initiative, the University of Calgary, and the Arctic Institute of North America. It provides a set of teaching resources designed for learners of all ages. In support of the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development 2022, the program is built around the question "What do mountains mean to you?" #mountainsmatter

Students take a global view of mountains and associated initiatives in mountain resilience, examining how mountains are created, what changes them, and the shared responsibilities of mountain stewardship. The materials are divided by module, theme, and topic, and include content on mountain weather and climate, biodiversity, and people.

Mountains – A Fragile Source of Life

From mountain goods and services to biodiversity and pollution –each episode in this video series teaches viewers why mountains are an important part of the global life-support system.

Video series by Dirk Schmeller, research professor and holder of the Chair of Functional Mountain Ecology at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse (ENSAT). Dirk has more than 25 years of research experience in the field of conservation biology, and contributes to GEO Mountains' work on Essential Biodiversity Variables in mountains.

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External Training Courses & Capacity Development Resources

• Mountains 101 (University of Alberta)

• Climate Change and Water in Mountains: A Global Concern (University of Geneva)
• Earth Observation from Space: The Cryosphere (University of Leeds)
• Spatial Ecology and related video lectures by Dr. Giuseppe Amatulli (Yale University)
• SINTER (Online) Snow School
• Earth & Environmental Data Science Workshop (Natural Resources Canada)
• Snow data analysis in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (ICIMOD)
• The Groundwater Project (University of Guelph)
• Software Carpentry
• Data best practices (Ken Mankoff, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
• Geospatial / time-series data sharing: GeoNode, SOS, CKAN, STAC (see GEO Mountains' General Inventory for further tools)

Finally, also see the GEO Knowledge Hub (GKH), which GEO Mountains supports. For an introductory video on the GKH, please see here.

Papers for Children / Young People

• Nutrients in mountain lakes: How much is too much? (Heard et al., 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Trouble in the forest: Whitebark Pine Trees, Mountain Pine Beetles, and climate change (Roche et al., 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Belowground mountaineers: Critters living in mountain soils (Steinwandter and Seeber, 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• What ice cores can tell us about Earth’s past (Myers and Criscitiello, 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• What do we mean by “climate” and “climate change”? (Regoto et al., 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Extreme climate and weather events in a warmer world (Meyer et al., 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Working with nature to solve societal problems (Schröter et al., 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)
• The impacts of climate change (Hartley and Tandon, 2022, Frontiers for Young Minds)
• How can we make mountain disasters less disastrous? (Klein et al., 2021, Science Journal for Kids and Teens)
• How can we keep our mountains healthy? (Mountain Sentinels Collaborative Network, 2021, Science Journal for Kids and Teens)
• When nature gets thirsty (Weissinger et al., 2021, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Assessing nature’s contributions to people (Ryu et al., 2020, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Do bats benefit from wildfires? (Steel et al., 2020, Science Journal for Kids and Teens)

• What are biodiversity hotspots? (Merritt et al., 2019, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• Observing change in glacier flow from space (Altena and Kääb, 2018, Frontiers for Young Minds) 

• How do we measure rainfall? (Gires, 2018, Frontiers for Young Minds)

• How do trees respond to stress? (Schäfer and Vanderklein, 2018, Frontiers for Young Minds)
• Why are the Himalayas getting hotter? (Palazzi et al., 2017, Science Journal for Kids and Teens)