Using Satellite Imagery and New Software to Enhance Inquiry and Understanding through NASA's CERES S'COOL Project

Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) is an international project with over 3600 observing classrooms in 83 different countries. It is the Education and Public Outreach component of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) Project based out of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. S'COOL has been growing and evolving over the past 16 years to accommodate and complement changing educational standards, new and useful resources in the field, and the needs of the participants. A successful observation leads a participant through: 1) Obtaining satellite overpass schedules, 2) Observing and reporting clouds within +/-15 minutes of the satellite's passage, 3) And comparing and classifying the agreement between the ground and satellite views.

For comparison and classification, bservers receive a ‘match' email when the observations correspond spatially and temporally to a satellite overpass. The email is a side-by-side comparison of the participants' ground observation and the satellite data. It also contains helpful vertical cloud profiles and satellite imagery to further explore the similarities and differences between the ground observation and the satellites' reports.

Recently, in 2011, The S'COOL team added the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) Web Mapping Service (WMS) to the resources available in ‘match' emails. S'COOL worked with the LANCE team in the tool's beta stages to be able to provide a MODIS satellite image of the observers' location, centered on their latitude and longitude. The LANCE image is also set to the date and time of the participants' observation to provide a customized comparison. A S'COOL LANCE Tutorial (linked to in the ‘match' email) encourages participants to explore the tool:

• Navigate around the image and change the date and time stamp.

• ‘Map Overview' - select a general area to view.

• 'Layers'- Chose from different satellite MODIS products for a base layer and apply different overlays, such as fires, population density, and state/country boundaries. The base layer will be initially set to the satellite that the observation matched.

LANCE, along with links to CloudSat and CALIPSO vertical cloud profile resources provided through the match email, utilize cutting edge software and satellite data to aid students and citizen scientists in understanding the role of clouds and radiation on our Earth and its systems.

This presentation will share how LANCE and other S'COOL match email resources are an example of using technology to enhance learning, lessons learned as the project has developed over several years, and future ideas for integration of technology into the S'COOL Project.