Studying the Earth's Environment from Space: A series of inquiry-based computer lab activities

Satellite images of Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere have proven to be valuable tools in studying the complexity of Earth's environmental systems. Earth-observing satellites are routinely used to monitor rapidly changing weather, El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomena in the Pacific Ocean, ocean currents, land and oceanic vegetation, polar sea ice distribution, and stratospheric ozone depletion. Rarely, however, do students have the opportunity to access and use such data for scientific inquiry into Earth Science. Teaching faculty may find incorporating satellite data into their science curriculum difficult due to the technical complexity of the data, the computer hardware/software required to process the data, the diverse ocean/atmosphere processes illustrated by the satellite data, and little time during the academic year available to develop new curriculum.

The goal of this NASA Earth Science Enterprise-funded project is to increase the use of satellite data in science classrooms by developing classroom materials linked to inquiry-based computer exercises. Studying the Earth's Environment from Space (SEES) is being developed in collaboration with NASA Goddard's Earth Science Enterprise Scientific and Educational Endeavors (SEE) group. SEES consists of four modules on the following topics - Stratospheric Ozone, Land Vegetation Cover, Atmospheric and Oceanic Interactions, and Polar Sea Ice Processes. Each module consists of background materials for introduction/discussion in the classroom and computer lab resources. The computer lab materials contain public domain software for data display and analyses, tutorials, satellite data, and computer exercises for students. A teacher's guide will accompany the exercises. The public domain display software is a version of NIH-Image for the Macintosh which has been modified by the NASA Goddard SEE group for SEES called SEE Image. SEE Image can run on PCs with a Macintosh emulator. A Java-version of the software is expected to be available within the next year.

An overview of this project along with specific examples of curriculum and exercises from these modules, the current status of the project, and how to obtain the materials will be presented.