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How Have We Used Remote Sensing at North Gulfport?
4,3,2 false color infrared image of Gulfport, MS.
At North Gulfport 7th and 8th Grade Magnet School, our environmental science class participates in GLOBE, an international environmental science program. We have taken and reported measurements of the atmosphere, soil, water and land cover around our school. We utilize remote sensing images to make maps of the watersheds near our school and the various land cover types. We also combine our work in the classroom with hands-on work in the field.
This is where we take measurements of the forest around our school and compare them to our LANDSAT satellite images. We measure things like canopy (tree) cover and ground cover, as well as tree height and species.
Measuring the height of trees with a clinometer. Creating an overlay land cover map.
The GLOBE program has also taught us about using remote sensing software. We use a program called MultiSpec to view our LANDSAT images and learn about the environment around our school. For example, MultiSpec allowed us to compare satellite photos of Gulfport taken in 1994 to photos taken in 2001. This showed a large amount of development around Canal Road and Interstate 10. To understand why these pictures show vegetation in red, we had to learn all about infrared energy and "false color."
Canal Road/I-10 area 1994. Canal Road/I-10 area 2001 showing new truck stops and a sports complex.
To better understand infrared energy, we reproduced a famous experiment called the Herschel Experiment. We used a prism to separate light into a spectrum. Three thermometers are used to show that the infrared light that we can't see actually has enough energy to raise the temperature the most.
Setting up the Herschel Experiment. The bottom thermometer is in the infrared.
EarthKam is a NASA program that allows schools to "take control" of digital cameras aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and uplink map coordinates to the crew of the ISS. It's not as simple, however, as just calling the ISS and requesting a picture. First, we had to convert local time to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT or UT), then project the orbit of the ISS several hours in the future using a slider map. Then we had to locate areas of night and day on the map, since the nighttime pictures won't show much detail. Finally, we would research the areas in the "footprint," or path of the ISS and see if we were interested in taking a picture of an area.
Using the slider map. Researching our targets.
An image we requested of Sonora, Mexico. An image we requested of Iraq in November 2002.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border in November of 2002.
Sources:
sirtf.caltech.edu/Education/Herschel/