II. Background: Space exploration has paved the way for placing
man-made objects in orbit around Earth.
Satellites have changed many parts of our lives. The way we communicate, travel, weather
forecasting, entertainment have all been improved by the presence of
satellites. Satellites have enabled us to have birds-eye view of the Earth and
study changes on Earth from that perspective.
III. Purpose: To enable students to come to know the usefulness
of satellites and for students to come to better understand certain
environmental changes.
IV. Materials: Internet connection, PC and your knowledge of Earth
Science.
V. Procedure:
1. Direct your web browser to:
http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/Help-GardenCity/Help-GardenCity
2. Read the passage on the right of the screen and pay
special attention to the segments “Reading Earth shots” and “What the colors
mean?”.
3. Use the article, “Garden City Irrigation”, to help
you learn how to understand and navigate within this format of satellite
imagery and information.
4. Answer #1-4 in the Question section based on the
“Garden City Irrigation” article.
5. Read the “Mt. St. Helens’ volcanic eruption”
article. Get there by clicking on the
small map icon in the lower portion of the screen. Mt. St. Helens is in the Northwestern corner of the USA. If you move your cursor over the yellow
circle, the title will pop up. Single
click on it.
6. Answer
questions #5-7 based on the images and article on Mt. St. Helens.
7.
Read the “Filchner Ice Shelf,
Antarctica” article. Get there by clicking
on the small map icon in the lower portion of the screen. This
article is the only yellow circle in Antarctica. I hope you enjoy this
article, it helped me understand glacier better.
8.
Answer questions 8-11 based on the
images and article on the Filchner Ice
Shelf.
9. Complete the conclusion by writing a paragraph.
VI. Questions:
1. Why do Landsat images show differences
in Earth’s surface with different colors?
2. What color or appearance do the
following types of surfaces have:
~
water _______________________
~
pavement/urban areas ____________________________
~
agricultural land _________________________________
3. Why are the agricultural areas (farms)
generally round?
4. The article mentions the Ogallala
Aquifer. An aquifer is an underground
geologic formation (layers of rock) that contains and transmits
large quantities of groundwater. The Ogallala Aquifer
stretches underground from Texas to the Dakotas! That is
basically the entire north-south distance of the USA. How will the
changes in Garden City farming affect this
aquifer?
5. I remember this eruption. I was only ten years old, but I remember seeing
the pictures on the news and the dark haze that was caused by all
the volcanic ash in the atmosphere. How
could New
York’s sky conditions be affected by a volcanic eruption almost 3,000
miles away?
6. Explain how and why the amount of vegetation changed
from the 1973 image to 1983.
7. Explain how and why the amount of vegetation changed
from the 1983 image to 1996.
8. Describe the cycle of water in this article on
glaciers.
9. What happened to iceberg A24? What is still happening today?
10. What evidence of the movement of the icebergs did
ships observe with their SONAR?
11. How did the Soviets (Russians) prove it is not a
good idea to build on an ice shelf
(glacier)?
Other references
Mt. St.
Helen’s:
The USGS site
provides an on-line resource: http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/msh/title.html
Glaciers:
The USGS
offers a collection of "Antarctica Resources on the Internet" at TerraWeb.wr.usgs.gov/TRS/projects/Antarctica.
The 1986
iceberg annotations are based on spreadsheet data from the National Ice Center,
at www.natice.noaa.gov.
VII. Conclusion: Write a paragraph about a part of this activity, in which you learned something or found
something interesting.