The Covid-19 pandemic teaching modalities in Turkey: An evaluation of school gardens and classes

•20 schools with their data were selected to analyze social distance.•A wide-range data sets for health and education policies were evaluated.•Classes and gardens area were evaluated according to changing pandemic conditions.•According to relevant guidelines, while school gardens are suitable with a high rate for pandemic conditions, it needs to be taken some measures for classes. The main scientific contribution of this study is to design an approach that can regulate school safety and student health in gardens and classes during the pandemic period using GIS. The method of this study is based on the use of school areas and building data, the creation of 4m2 social distance areas for students, and the evaluation of these areas in terms of health measures. To this aim, first, the relevant guidelines issued by the government institutions in Turkey during the COVID-19 process were examined, in relation to how they will reflect on education policies regarding the sanitary safety of schools. This data was obtained from open-source data sets. Then, in the application stage, 20 schools were selected in order to analyse the sustainability of education in the Balgat district. In addition, the sanitary conditions of classrooms and garden areas were evaluated within the framework of educational policies, taking into account the capabilities of geographical information systems (GIS). The findings indicated that 95% of school gardens comply with pandemic regulations, and only 38.9% of school classes can support education in two periods through binary grouping. It has been concluded that school buildings are well-planned in terms of health measures for gardens and classes. In addition, GIS were found to be very useful for analysing areas in terms of student health, comparing schools regionally, tracking the spread of the pandemic, and identifying high-risk school areas.