Štefan Gábor

Commuting to work is a key form of everyday mobility. This study introduces a bivariate Wurman Dot method to visualise the relationship between commuting inflows and the Job Density Index (JDI) in Slovakia. Using 2021 Population and Housing Census data and a hexagonal grid, both indicators are visualised through a combination of symbol size and a bivariate colour scheme. The method reduces biases typical of choropleth and proportional-symbol maps by minimising shape heterogeneity, preventing symbol overlap, and enabling joint interpretation of absolute and relative labour-market indicators. The resulting visualisation reveals the hierarchy of employment centres, peripheral labour markets, and spatial mismatches between labour demand and commuting intensity, demonstrating the analytical value of the approach.

Air pollution, largely driven by car traffic, poses significant challenges in many cities, including Košice, Slovakia. As the city explores micromobility as a part of its smart city initiatives and sustainable alternative to individual car use, understanding its spatial dynamics becomes essential. Despite the growing adoption of shared micromobility systems, research on their spatial patterns in Central Europe is still limited. This study analyzes over 900,000 trips made between 2019 and 2022 using bicycles, e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-mopeds in Košice’s dockless system. Using spatial analysis, we identified key hubs near public transport stops, pedestrian zones, and universities, highlighting how micromobility addresses the first/last mile transport challenge. A notable shift from bicycles to e-scooters was observed, enabling wider adoption in areas with fragmented terrain and neighborhoods farther from the city center. Our findings show a significant demand for shared micromobility, indicating its potential to reduce urban car dependency and support smart and sustainable urban transport. However, winter months remain a challenge, with high smog levels but near-zero demand for shared micromobility.

Starting from the school year 2026/2027, Slovakia will implement the State edu-cational programme for primary and lower secondary education (Ministry of education, 2023), introducing performance-based and content-related changes in geography educa-tion. For the third educational cycle (6th –9th grades) the curriculum sets learning activities that can be conducted using geoinformation technologies. These activities include geo-graphical inquiry, the use of statistical data for acquiring, processing, presenting the infor-mation, identifying the spatial relationships, creating a map, and drawing conclusions. The achievement of such educational goals may vary depending on the understanding and preparedness of teachers. In this context, it is essential that future geography teachers ac-quire the knowledge and skills to apply inquiry-based teaching strategies effectively. This paper examines inquiry-based learning and teaching with digital mapping tools aimed at pre-service geography teachers by equipping them to design their own inquiry-based tasks. A set of twenty-eight geography tasks was analysed from didactic and subject-specific viewpoints. Findings show pre-service geography teachers cultivated their expertise in un-derstanding and designing the inquiry-based tasks with the use of selected digital mapping tools in topics of school geography. Their most frequent design was a task to create a the-matic map representing a demographic indicator of Slovak population using the ArcGIS Online platform. The study concludes with recommendations for integrating inquiry-based learning with digital mapping tools into geography teacher training programmes.

Commuting to work is one of the most important forms of spatial mobility of the population. The mode of transport is one of its key characteristics. However, its spa-tial variability has so far been little explored, which is also due to the lack of reliable sta-tistical data. The census in Slovakia in 2021 addressed this issue, offering an opportunity to examine the use of individual modes of transport at various spatial levels, and in relation to the characteristics of commuters. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the spatial differentiation of intra-municipal and inter-municipal daily commuting to work according to the main mode of transport used, and in relation to the age of the commuters. The basic spatial framework of the study is the system of functional urban regions in Slovakia. By applying statistical methods and cartographic visualization, the results demonstrating the spatial variability in the mode of transport were achieved. Regularities were also iden-tified in relation to various age categories of commuters. In addition, the study indicated a significant influence of the social-economic conditions and orography of specific territo-ries on the preference for commuting mode. The results have the potential to contribute to more effective spatial planning or investments in various forms of transport infrastruc-ture. At the same time, it is an initial study that encourages the examination of spatial pat-terns and forms of daily commuting in relation to other characteristics of commuters or geographical characteristics of the affected areas. The knowledge from this study is par-tially transferable to countries where similar statistical data are not available. URL: https://www.gcass.science.upjs.sk/