Training, Education & Capacity Development

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.

Tutorial: Efficient Zonal Statistics Over Complex Geometries Using PostGIS

In this tutorial, developed for the GEO Open Data and Open Knowledge Workshop 2023, participants gained the capacity to efficiently summarize, plot, and map spatio-temporal dynamics represented in geospatial datasets over regions of interest. The tutorial focused on using open-source computational tools (namely PostGIS, R, and QGIS), involving both raster and vector data. These operations, while conceptually straightforward, are frequently applied in research, and are crucial for "distilling" complex datasets for policy- and other decision-making purposes. The tutorial is especially targeted at individuals who may have extensive experience with desktop GIS software (e.g. ArcGIS / QGIS), but who may have less experience in developing spatial analysis workflows using script-based approaches.

Go to the tutorial

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.

View the course materials Download the combined PDF

 

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.

Tune in and subscribe

External Training Courses & Capacity Development Resources

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

 

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