In today’s lesson, we are examining water use and water quality. Satellite imagery helps scientists to better understand the changes in the environment. Examine the images below of the Aral Sea; the left image is from April 10, 1986, and the right image is from June 5, 2024. The water loss between the two images is striking. Once, the Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world; however, the Soviet Union diverted two major rivers to irrigate farmland (human water use), cutting off the inland sea from its water source in the 1960s.
What a difference 35 years can make!?!
Images from the lesson
We continue our odyssey, exploring the lessons of the 2024 Earth Observation Day poster, “Earth Science Everywhere.“ The lesson fulfills the NGSS MS-ESS3-3 standard. Students will examine how humans impact earth systems through water use and quality. Human activities can significantly alter the biosphere, sometimes damaging or destroying natural ecosystems. Changes to Earth’s environment can have different impacts (negative and positive) on other living things. Humans can perform activities and invent technologies to mitigate or prevent negative impacts on the Earth.
The Aral Sea is located in western Asia in the counties of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
After discussing the images, students will be asked to read an article from the NASA Earth Observatory website: “World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea,” to learn more about what caused this water loss and view a time-lapse video of the shrinking sea. Next, students will have a chance to use Google Earth to investigate the shrinking of the Aral Sea with measurement tools and various years of imagery and create their own time-lapse videos as time permits. After that, as the lesson wraps up, students will learn about environmental protection careers. Finally, an online game or printable quiz is available to test students’ comprehension of the main topics of the lesson.
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, causing widespread devastation across the surrounding landscape. An infrared, false-color image, captured on August 26, 1986, by the Thematic Mapper sensor on Landsat 5, vividly illustrates the eruption’s aftermath. The image reveals the extensive damage caused by the eruption, including the vast areas of barren land and the destruction of dense forests. Disaster mapping is crucial in understanding the long-term environmental impact of natural and human-made disasters. It also aids in monitoring the gradual environmental recovery process.
Image 1: What’s going on in this picture? An Image from the lesson plan
This lesson teaches students about natural hazards and disasters from a global scientific perspective and also to help bring awareness to the natural hazards at their local level. By having local knowledge about natural hazards students are better prepared as they make choices in their communities. In the first activity, students learn important vocabulary words. the words will help students understand the difference between a natural hazard (environmental phenomena that have the potential to impact societies and the human environment) and a natural disaster (the negative impact following an actual occurrence of a natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community.)
Then students will use Mt. St. Helens as a case study to examine these ideas. Students will look at a satellite image taken shortly after the Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption and be asked to tell what is going on in the image (see Image 1). To help reinforce the vocabulary concepts students can play an online game or complete a print handout (see Image 4).
Image 2: A screenshot from the NASA Earth Observatory Page
Next, students will continue learning about Mt. St. Helens by completing a reading, “Devastation and Recovery at Mt. St. Helens,” on the NASA Earth Observatory website. They will also view a time-lapse video showing images from 1979-2016. Students can complete another short online quiz or printout to assess reading comprehension. To wrap up the Mt. St. Helens lesson, students will spend time usingGoogle Earth to explore the site of the volcano’s eruption. The teacher is encouraged to discuss how satellite imagery has been a major technological breakthrough for disaster management. It has allowed scientists a new way to monitor changes, which helps track hazards and disasters. Example: images before the eruption, in the aftermath (to assess the damage), and in the recovery phase. Share with students that the Landsat satellite has a new image every 16 days.
Transitioning to the second part of the lesson which is focused on identifying the most significant risks of natural disasters locally based on the local occurrence of natural hazards. It is important to emphasize that natural hazards can occur in any region of the country. While we can’t stop natural hazards from occurring, we can do our best to be prepared for them when they do occur.
One way we can be prepared for natural hazards is to know the greatest risks in our local community. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines natural hazards as environmental phenomena that have the potential to impact societies and the human environment. FEMA created a web map of the United States that scores every location based on their risk of natural hazards and their community’s resiliency. The FEMA National Risk Index Map can help communities understand their natural hazard risks and their expected impacts during or after a disaster.
Image 3: The user interface of the FEMA National Risk Index Tool
Therefore, to better understand these risks, students will learn about 18 common natural hazards, and then they will estimate which hazards they think are most likely to happen in your community. After talking with a partner and the class, students will be introduced to the FEMA National Risk Index website; please take a look at the lesson plan for more details. As the class wraps up, there will be a short discussion of emergency management careers. A final online game or printable quiz is available to test students’ natural hazards knowledge from the lesson.
Earlier this year, IowaView Staff member, Amy Logan, created a new piece of art for IowaView’s Iowa as Art Collection. The piece is called Cautionary Waters. It is based off an IowaView blog post, Change Over Time – Flooding on the Landscape (NW Iowa), a series of IowaShots images that were released in 2022. This piece revisits those images and includes new Landsat images from the 2023 drought and 2024 flood.
Cautionary Waters: Visons of the Past, Planning for the Future
How are we planning for the future in our communities? Cautionary Waters is a piece of artwork that asks us to think about this question.
The piece includes four Landsat satellite images of the same area of Northwest Iowa taken in 1990 (a normal year, upper left), 1993 (a year of memorable flooding in the Midwest, upper right), 2023 (a year of drought, lower left), and 2024 (another year of memorable flooding, lower right). White areas in these images are water. These two flood events were roughly 30 years apart.
The piece asks viewers to reflect: when we are planning, do we consider only typical conditions, or does our planning account for extremes, flood or drought as well? Are we willing to allow development in the floodplain and take the loss when the flood comes, or perhaps make a harder choice to not develop there and lose out in the short-term? Also, in cases when we choose to develop in lower elevation areas, what kinds of zoning and development are we allowing in these areas?
The piece is currently on display as part of the “Do Justice” art exhibit at Harvest Vineyard Church, in Ames, Iowa, which runs through the end of January 2025. After that the piece is available for loan on a first come, first serve basis. If interested in displaying the piece or other Iowa as Art pieces, please contact, Amy Logan, IowaView State Coordinator for additional details.
Earth Observation Day 2024 is finally here as it the release of the AmericaView 2024 Earth Observation Day Poster! The poster is following the theme of this year’s Earth Science Week theme, “Earth Science Everywhere”. The front of the AmericaView 2024 Earth Observation Day poster features 6 image themes: agriculture, disaster, forestry, urban land use, water, and wildlife. The back of the poster explains the significance of the images and provides links to 6 themed lesson plans. IowaView was responsible for the disaster management lesson plan.
What: VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON EVENT Virginia Tech Office of GIS and Remote Sensing Research Symposium We have an exceptional panel of speakers on hand this year representing Duke University, NASA (Emerita), and Virginia Tech. Another highlight of the Symposium, is the student poster session & web map app showcase with over 35 undergraduate and graduate student posters on full display! When: 4/8/22 @ 12pm-3:30pm (Eastern) Registration (free): https://virginiatech.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_n0l1pRCTTSWgDeP7Jwx47Q
What: VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON EVENT Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) Conference ITEC is hosting the annual conference on April 13-14. Join fellow Iowa educators at the state’s premier Tech Ed event! IowaView staff will be presenting on April 14 at 1:15 -2:05pm – Spreading the Mapping Bug: Sharing Geospatial Resources, Ready-to-Go Curriculum, and Mapping Activities for Teachers to Use Tomorrow and Integrate into Their Lessons. Great for student engagement. Many of these materials align with core standards and resources include interactive maps and apps available immediately. When: 4/14/22 @ 1:15-2:05pm Registration: https://www.itec-ia.org/conference-registration-details/
What: VIRTUAL EVENT GeoTech Center – Earth Observation Day
Enjoy this water themed poster “Water Today and for the Future” from the AmericaView’s Earth Observation Day Team. This poster contains the creative game experience to help bring understanding to how water resources in America are used and managed for future use. You can download the poster and you can play the game online on Tabletopia. The poster is available in Spanish.
This Image was captured with Landsat 9 on December 12, 2021. Notice the snow dusting in the north part of the image.
Yesterday the United State Geological Survey (USGS) released the first 38,000 scenes collected from the recently launch Landsat 9 (September 2021). After much calibration and quality assurance here are some of the first clear images of Iowa. For more images visit USGS Earth Explorer: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/.
Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ian Dudley
Landsat 9 is scheduled to be launched on September 16, 2021. This will mark almost 50 years of earth observation by US satellites. In preparation for this historic launch, we will be sharing several interactive documents about the history of the Landsat mission as well as the information about the Landsat 9 mission.
Today we would like to share with you, A History of the Landsat Program, developed by Ellie McGinty at UtahView. It’s an interactive Google Earth Tour, which documents major moments in earth observation history through a combination of maps, text, and curated images starting with the founding of the United States Geological Survey in 1879 through the birth of NASA in 1958 to the conception of Landsat in 1970 and all the way to the present day launching of Landsat 9.
Over the past few years the ISU GIS Facility has hosted a number of mapathons. Most of our mapathons have a time set aside for mapping in Iowa and then a time where we focus on international projects.
It is amazing what even a small group of mappers can do to add to the OpenStreetMap basemap in a small town in Iowa. Below are three examples of demonstrating how a mapathon event can add to the OpenStreetMap.
OpenStreetMap is a publicly editable map of the world. It’s is often referred to as Wikipedia for maps. Anyone can sign up for an account and begin adding to the map. Edits to the map are reviewed and validated by other members of the community.
In 2010, OpenStreetMap was used as a humanitarian disaster relief tool after an earthquake in Haiti. Volunteers from across the world mapped buildings and roads from satellite imagery in areas that been damaged by the earthquake. Then teams on the ground were able to use that information to assess damage and begin recovery efforts.
Since that time the use of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap has spread around the globe helping in disaster response as well as disaster prevention and many other humanitarian efforts. We encourage you to take time during Geography Awareness Week to volunteer your time and talent to help with some of the following projects:
Suggested International Projects:
Public Lab Mongolia – https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/9560/ Public Lab Mongolia (PLM), a local non-governmental organization in Mongolia, is leading the Mongolian chapter for volunteer mappers through the HOTmicrogrant COVID-19 project, as part of their mission to promote open data and disaster preparedness. This mapping will also help with COVID-19 response efforts. This project is to map Ulaanbaatar capital city of Mongolia, is organized by PLM in collaboration with the Mongolian Geo-spatial Association and local universities.
Hurricane Eta – Nicaragua – https://tasks.hotosm.org/projects/9765 Hurricane Eta brought wind, rain and storm surge to the coast of Nicaragua. This project is to finish the basemap of Bilwi (Puerto Cabezas) by digitizing buildings from MAXAR imagery. Available to beginners, there may be tricky tasks in this project as some areas have been partially mapped with older imagery and vegetation can often hide parts of structures. Maker sure to review the instructions for tips on how to overcome these challenges and provide high quality data.
