Educational Interventions for Contemplating and Raising Awareness of Urban Heat Island and Relevance of Remote Sensing
Journal
Sustainability
Date Issued
September 15, 2025
Abstract
Educational interventions have consistently proven effective in raising awareness and building capacity among diverse demographic groups, including both students and educators. Research indicates that the integration of environmental topics into school curricula and professional development programs significantly enhances knowledge and encourages environmentally responsible behaviors. The present study investigates the perspectives of A and B Grade students at Pafos High School in Cyprus—both those who have elected to study Physics and those who have not—as well as the views of their Physics teachers, regarding the phenomenon of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and application of Remote Sensing. To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire was designed comprising demographic questions (e.g., gender, origin), items measured on a five-point Likert scale, and binary (positive/negative) response questions, and it was administered to both teachers and students. The same questionnaire was administered to students and to teachers in two phases: initially, to capture their views prior to any intervention, and subsequently, after an educational session on the UHI phenomenon and application of Remote Sensing. Students received the information during a designated class period, while teachers attended a 45 min joint session. All responses were submitted via Google Forms. Descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations, were calculated and presented through graphical visualizations to facilitate interpretation and comparison across groups and phases. The pre-intervention results revealed a knowledge gap between the teachers and student groups: compared to teachers, students exhibit a significantly lower baseline understanding of both the Remote Sensing and UHI topics. Following the intervention, the results have shown marked improvements in both groups, with mean scores for knowledge and perceptions rising substantially, implying that the intervention was beneficially impactful for both demographics. Also, the post-intervention results demonstrated near-identical scores across both groups, indicating that the intervention successfully closed the initial knowledge gap.
Funding
The Cyprus University of Technology is hereby acknowledged for supporting this research. Also, the authors acknowledge the ‘EXCELSIOR’: ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment H2020 Widespread Teaming project (www.excelsior2020.eu; accessed on 1 June 2025). The ‘EXCELSIOR’ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 857510, from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for the European Programmes, Coordination and Development and the Cyprus University of Technology. The authors also wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.
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