Studying the Earth´s environment from space-a curriculum workshop

The two biggest challenges facing pre-college and undergraduate educators in bringing satellite data into their classroom is the lack of a theoretical background and the lack of time to tailor currently available curriculum materials to their particular classroom application. The proposed 5-day curriculum workshop will provide teachers the background to interpret a wide variety of satellite imagery and the time to develop some of their own classroom-ready materials. The first two days of the workshop will be dedicated to providing a background on the principles of remote sensing, types of sensors, their application, and some of the various ocean/atmospheric processes currently studied from spaceborne instruments. Application of the background material discussed during the first two days will be provided on the third day through hands-on computer exercises on satellite data enhancements and interpretation. Participants will explore the World Wide Web for currently available curriculum materials on the fourth day, and the final day will provide the participants the opportunity to develop classroom materials presented/discovered during the previous sessions. At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will have been exposed to how remote sensing is used to study various aspects of the Earth´s environment, and will have some classroom-ready materials