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K-16 Education

PAView works to establish links to educators throughout the Commonwealth to develop partnerships, create training opportunities, and provide training and informational materials to support education in remote sensing. Some PAView related efforts are included below.

Google Earth Lesson Competition

California University of Pennsylvania students recently competed in a Google Earth Lesson Competition. The Cal U students developed lessons that conform to Pennsylvania state curriculum standards so that they can be utilized by teachers throughout the Commonwealth. The effort, which was funded by the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, covered topics as wide ranging as plate tectonic theory, characteristics of hurricanes, earthquakes, and sea level rise.

The names of the students and information on the lesson they designed are listed below. You may also download and use the lessons by clicking on the download link.

• Christina Longo
  Christina developed a lesson to help students understand how changes in the volume of the cryosphere and sea level rises can impact coastal and low-lying communities.
  This lesson won 2nd Place in the competition.
  Download the cryosphere lesson.
• Katie Mercadante
  Katie developed a lesson that will help students compare distances traveled by major hurricanes in recent history. Students will use this data to form a hypothesis about the correlation between date formed, strength and distance traveled.
  Download the hurricanes and distance lesson.
• Taya Flaherty
  Taya developed a lesson that provided students with an opportunity to learn about plate tectonic theory.
  This lesson won 3rd place in the competition.
  Download the tectonic theory lesson.
• Alexis Sites
  Alexis developed a lesson that allows students to be able to classify different characteristics of a hurricane using Google Earth software.
  This lesson won 1st place in the competition.
  Download the hurricanes classification lesson.
• Emily Zabkar
  Emily developed a lesson in which students will be able to demonstrate how they can use Google Earth to find the distance from an Earthquake and its surrounding areas. The students will use the conversion equations given to them to convert the distance from miles to yards. Download the earthquakes lesson.

Congratulations to all the students who participated in this competition!

NASA World Wind Class Activity

--Submitted by Ashlee Longstreth of California Univeristy of Pennsylvania

This class activity was designed to meet PA Geography standards and to help students identify, locate, and describe different parts of the world by using the features of Nasa World Wind.
Objectives: The students will be able to locate and compare different areas of the earth. They should also be able to determine the distance between one place and another by using the features of Nasa World Wind.

Dr. Nicholas Shorts Remote Sensing Tutorial

This NASA tutorial provides insight into understanding and using remotely sensed data. In addition, there is a specific section on Central Pennsylvania.

NASA World Wind Remote Sensing Workshops at California University of Pennsylvania

In Fall 2006, Dr. Thomas Mueller and Dr. Jamie Mitchem of California University of Pennsylvania presented a series of workshops to help Cal U. education majors explore and understand issues and concepts in remote sensing. This project, which was funded by the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, focused on the use of NASA World Wind to illustrate concepts in remote sensing. The participants developed lessons using World Wind that followed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Geography, Science, and Math Standards. These lessons were then evaluated and the top three winners were awarded scholarships.

The winners are:

• 1st Place Daniel Szelc ($1000 Scholarship)
• 2nd Place Christopher Maga ($500 Scholarship)
• 3rd Place Ashley Speeney ($250 Scholarship)

To download a copy of the winning lessons, click on the links above.

K-16 Education Links

Below you will find links to educational resources, tutorials, and articles about using remotely sensed data in an educational setting.

• Earth Observations Day Poster of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
• Earth Observations Day
• National Geospatial Intelligency Agency (NGA) Earth
• Hurrican Dean 3D
• LandSat 7 Teachers Kit
• The Remote Sensing Tutorial
• "Remote Sensing Data Acquisition and Processing" from Earth Observation Magazine
• Imagers--Interactive Multimedia Adventures for Grade School Education using Remote Sensing
• Reading Satellite Images--from Discovery Education
• Remote Sensing and Invasive Species: A History, Glossary, and More!--from The Nature Conservancy
• Lesson Plan on GOES Imagery
• Remote Sensing Principles from Middle Atlantic from Space
• LandSat Tutorial from Middle Atlantic from Space
• Image Processing Tutorial from Middle Atlantic from Space