Space Grant Consortium - University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Providing High School Students with Earth Imaging Tools *
Thomas C. Jeffery
University of Wisconsin – Whitewater
Abstract: Science education constitutes a significant segment of the core curriculum in primary
and secondary schools. Traditionally, courses on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics constitute the
majority of science education in most schools. Earth imaging, utilizing air photos or satellite
images, can contribute to each of the disciplines above, however, without providing a foundation
devoted to understanding earth imagery, the ability to extract meaning from the information
provided is limited. This inability to incorporate earth imagery in primary and secondary schools
had much less significance five years ago since the cost of the data made it prohibitive.
However, the recent availability of Google Earth and the entire archive of Landsat imagery at no
cost make earth imagery a frequently used tool in spatial problem solving in both the public and
private sectors and also make it possible to offer instruction on analyzing and interpreting earth
imagery in primary and secondary education.
Remote Sensing Value
Earth imaging. Acquiring images o f t he earth’s s urface p redates t he i nvention of t he
airplane, but it was the innovation of controlled flight and much later, unmanned satellites, that
enabled a erial phot ography t o grow i nto t he va luable da ta s ource t hat i t h as b ecome (Jensen,
2000). The ability to view large portions of the surface of the planet as it exists, and not as the
result of i nterpretation or i nterpolation a llows t he vi ewer t o vi sually analyze f eatures a nd
relationships. T he introduction in the mid and latter portions of the 20 th century of the satellite
based i maging pl atform i ncreased t he t ype a nd vol ume of da ta t o i nclude m ultispectral
information (Lillesand, et a l., 2004 ). T his h as led to e ven greater u tility o f th e ima gery for
methods of compositional analysis.
University level. Due to the value of aerial photography and satellite imagery as a means of
studying the form, structure, and composition of the earth’s surface, it was only natural that the
study of e arth i magery be c ontained w ithin t he s cope of Geography and E arth S cience
departments. Increasingly, ot her d epartments and di sciplines ha ve i ncorporated i magery a s a
means of investigating and analyzing earth surface features and relationships. B iology, botany,
environmental s tudies, chemistry, a nd ot hers are i ncreasingly r elying on i magery i n t heir
investigations. Universities and research scientists were some of the initial users of this data, as
they could afford the computing equipment and the cost of the data, however, very little of this
technology has been adopted by primary and secondary schools.
* This project was made possible by funding from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium and the University of
Wisconsin-Whitewater College of Letters and Sciences, along with the UW-W Geography & Geology department
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