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2B Mathematics, Science, and Technology #1
Mathematics is helpful in almost every kind of human endeavor—from laying bricks to prescribing medicine or drawing a face. In particular, mathematics has contributed to progress in science and technology for thousands of years and still continues to do so....
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3A Technology and Science #2
Technology is essential to science for such purposes as access to outer space and other remote locations, sample collection and treatment, measurement, data collection and storage, computation, and communication of information....
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6A Human Identity #5
Human beings use technology to match or excel many of the abilities of other species....
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9E Reasoning #2
Practical reasoning, such as diagnosing or troubleshooting almost anything, may require many-step, branching logic....
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An Introduction to Remote Sensing
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Purpose
To develop an understanding of how the technology of remote sensing has expanded human abilities.
Context
In middle school, students should look at ways in which human beings use technology to improve speed, mobility, strength, hearing, seeing, etc. Whenever students learn something about the ways that technology helps human beings, they also learn something about human capabilities and limitations. This lesson combines several resources from NASA's Observatorium to teach about remote sensing. Although students will learn about the technology involved in remote sensing as part of the lesson, teachers should focus their attention on the ideas in the benchmark by discussing how technology has assisted scientific investigation and how it has enhanced our natural abilities. This lesson also lends itself to a discussion of the relationship between mathematics and science.
Prerequisites: This activity requires students to perform some calculations using a calculator. Students will need to be able to discern when they need to round numbers. They should also be able to use and convert metric units for calculating distances.
Planning Ahead
Note: This activity should be done in a computer lab. It can be completed in two 45-minute class periods or one 90-minute class period. Review the Eyes in the Sky activity, found on the Observatorium site, to decide whether you want students to work on it independently or whether you will have the class work on it together. More advanced students should be able to work through the activity with minimal guidance. However, younger students may need to go over the information in a more step-by-step manner. Go over the student E-Sheet for this lesson and decide how much guidance your students will need.
Motivation
Ask students to "guess" what remote sensing is. Ask them to think of the words that make up the term (remote and sensing) to come up with a guess. (Accept all student answers. Allow them to speculate.) You can write the student responses on the chalk board or on chart paper so that students can refer to them later.
Using the An Introduction to Remote Sensing student E-Sheet, have students (or the entire class if you can project the page) explore the first three pages of the tutorial from Does Our Future Have a Future?: Better Living Through Geospatial Analysis.
After students have viewed the pages, discuss the following questions from the E-Sheet:
- Explain the statement, "When someone is staring at you they are actually doing remote sensing." (Student answers will vary, but they will likely give examples of activities in which they use their senses of sight, hearing, or smell to gather information.)
- Give some examples of "remote sensing" that you do everyday. (Accept all answers for which students can provide plausible explanations. Some possible answers include smelling cookies baking through an open window, looking at faraway objects through binoculars, or talking to someone on the telephone.)
- How is remote sensing defined in the article? (The process of gathering information about something without touching it.)
After students have discussed the definition of remote sensing given in the article, ask students to compare that definition with the list of earlier "guesses."
Development
In this lesson, students will explore several Internet resources to develop an understanding of remote sensing technology and how it enhances human abilities.
Following Step 2 of the E-Sheet, students will work in pairs to explore Learning without Touching. This resource will help students place the idea of remote sensing into a larger context. They will come to understand that remote sensing does not necessarily require technology, but that through technology, humans have vastly expanded natural capabilities to acquire information remotely. Allow students to explore the resource and then discuss the following questions:
- What is a sensor? Which types of everyday devices can act as sensors? (A sensor is a device used to gather and transmit information remotely. A camera can be a sensor, or a telescope.)
- What are some of the things space-based sensors allow us to do? (Observe things on earth from space, such as weather patterns. Observe things further out in space, such as the Hubble telescope.)
- Who uses satellite observations? Give some examples. (Archeologists, mapmakers, relief workers, coast guard, urban planners, ship captains, farmers, fishing industry, military, and so on.)
Refer students to Step 3 of the E-Sheet. Direct them to work in pairs to do Eyes in the Sky: A Remote Sensing Activity. Here they will be presented with some information about remote sensing and analyzing satellite images. Make sure that students click on and review the explanation of Don't know what a pixel is? You may want to go over this page with the class as a whole if you think your students will not be able to understand the relationship. This explanation is important because without this knowledge they will not be able to solve the questions posed in the scenario.
The E-Sheet will direct students to discuss the following questions:
- What are pixels? How are they used to calculate area in remote sensing images? (Pixels are tiny squares that make up each image. Each pixel represents an area of land. By adding up the number of pixels in an image, you can calculate the area of land in a scene.)
- Where would you find urban areas in the Greater Charleston region? (The urban areas are clustered around the fresh water in the center of the satellite image.)
- What percentage of the Greater Charleston region is urban? (20%.)
Using Step 4 of the E-Sheet, students will work through a scenario in which they are asked to determine the amount of destruction caused by the Yellowstone wildfires in 1988. Give student pairs up to 30 minutes (longer if they need more time) to work through the scenario. Students will be asked to determine the following:
- How much total forest there was before the fire (40.4 sq. km).
- How much has been destroyed (19.2 sq. km).
- How much remains (21.2 sq km).
After students have explored the resource, have the groups come together to discuss how they solved the problem. Not all groups will have been able to solve the problem on their own. However, it is important that all students understand and be able to explain how the problem was solved after the class has discussed the scenario. You might also want to extend discussion of the remote sensing images by asking questions such as the following:
- Why did you multiply by 900? (Because each pixel represents 30 x 30 meters.)
- Were any areas of the park not affected by the fire? What were they? (Yes, areas consisting of rock.)
Assessment
Use the "Understanding What You Have Learned" section of the student E-Sheet to assess and summarize students' understanding. The E-Sheet will direct students to answer the questions below in a short paragraph.
- How has the technology of remote sensing expanded our ability to solve problems? Use examples from Eyes in the Sky to support your answer.
- Discuss how these problems might have been solved without remote sensing.
- Would the solutions have been as accurate or as satisfactory?
Extensions
The Remote Sensing Tutorial provides more detailed information about remote sensing and technology.
At You Can Do Remote Sensing, you will find seven-band, 512 x 512, thirty-meter resolution data sets from the Landsat Thematic Mapper and a step-by-step procedure for viewing and analyzing them using a freeware application that you can download for both Macintosh and PC computers.
Created :08/28/2002
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