In 1992, the Florida EXPLORES! program began with an effort to help science teachers implement the NOAA Direct Readout Satellite program in their classrooms. Since then, nearly 250 weather satellite receiving stations have been deployed in Florida classrooms. In 1997, the program opened up to teachers in other states, and in 2000, a standards-based educational curriculum project was launched. Our CD-ROM was published in 2001, consisting of teacher-authored lessons which correlate to Florida and National Science Education Standards.

Beginning in 2002, we embarked on a new and broader mission for the EXPLORES! program. Our poster will highlight how we are developing a new program for teachers, consisting of more broad examples of geoscience imagery, particularly from various types of remote sensing platforms. Satellite and radar platforms maintained by NOAA and NASA are used to illustrate various ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum and their utility in geoscience imaging.

A distance learning course will debut in the summer 2004 for a cadre of selected EXPLORES! teachers, and they will work with us on developing a larger and more broad set of inquiry-based strategies for teaching geoscience imagery, particularly at the middle and high school levels.