Visiting Teachers Become Remote Sensing Experts

	17 teachers from ten states attended a weeklong remote sensing workshop at Goddard last week. Using NASA satellite data and remote controlled planes, the teachers will use their new found knowledge to conduct local Earth science missions with their students. In return, the teachers will help NASA develop an education module to be used in science classes nationwide.

Sometimes when Laura Amatulli’s sixth grade students do science, they’re skeptical. They’ve grown up with video games, the Internet and cell phones. Weather vanes and seemingly archaic measuring devices just don’t seem scientific to them.

“My kids complain about the way we measure the weather,” said Amatulli, a teacher at Avondale Meadows in Detroit, Mich. “They want something digital. They want something real-time. They want something NASA.”

Which, in part, is what brought Amatulli and 16 other teachers to Goddard last week to attend a weeklong Remote Sensing Earth Science workshop. The workshop focused on how the teachers can use remote sensing techniques to do various Earth science projects with their classes. It marks the beginning of the Remote Sensing Earth Science Teacher Program (RSESTeP).

RSESTeP will allow teachers throughout the nation to plan local Earth science missions that involve the use of NASA data from MODIS and SeaWiFS, as well as remote controlled airplanes and infrared temperature sensors. The 17 teachers at the workshop are all associated with the JASON Foundation for Education (JFE), the nation’s leading provider of experienced-based science and math curriculum and professional learning for grades 4-9, and came to Goddard manned with mission ideas, the spirit of adventure and a desire to inspire their students in a new way.

Goddard and Wallops will supply the teachers and their students with a GPS, temperature sensors and a hand-held weather station in addition to a remote controlled plane that has a video camera and thermal infrared imager aboard. The planes can fly a maximum of 400 feet above ground. Each participating school will have a week with the plane, enough time to prepare for and execute their five minute missions. The teachers will also have access to satellite data to accompany the data that the plane collects.

“This program is a partnership between NASA, local remote control plane clubs, local scientists and teachers,” said Sallie Smith, NASA/JASON liaison and RSESTeP organizer. “Together we want to get this technology into the teachers’ and students’ hands.”

	Teachers look on as Pat Coronado, principle investigator for the Remote Sensing Earth Science Teacher Program (RSESTP), explains the electronics aboard a remote controlled plane. Workshop attendees also learned about safety protocol in flying, remote sensing data interpretation and a few even got to try hand-launching the plane.

The Remote Sensing Earth Science workshop was organized to prepare the teachers to use the remote controlled planes and satellite data to enhance the quality of their missions. The teachers spent the week listening to talks from educators, remote sensing specialists and Goddard scientists. They learned about safety protocol while using the remote control planes. They even got to try their hand at flying one of the planes.

“My own personal knowledge has increased tremendously in this single week,” said Marjorie Sparks, a seventh grade teacher at St. Hugh’s School in Greenbelt, Md. “I’ve learned a lot about remote sensing and the way things are processed once the info comes, how the info is gathered and the terminology involved. And the support they’ve offered has been great. I feel like I’ve got people behind me every step of the way.”

The 17 teachers came from all over the country (Michigan, Maine, Connecticut, Alaska, New York, Minnesota, South Carolina, North Carolina, California, and Maryland) and their mission plans tend to be specific to the state they are from. The missions range from looking at glacial retreat in Alaska to taking a general survey of wetlands in Minnesota to monitoring the damage to trees caused by a certain species of beetle in North America.

“This workshop has been great,” said Heather Pelletier, a sixth grade teacher at Colony Middle School in Palmer, Ala. “They’ve provided us with an almost overwhelming amount of information, so it’ll take a while to process. But it’s so neat to be with a group of teachers that’s this excited and dynamic. The whole experience has been so awesome.”

	Aqua project scientist, Dr. Claire Parkinson (left), met with Heather Pelletier (right), a sixth grade teacher at Colony Middle School in Palmer, Ala., to discuss her mission. Pelletier plans to look at the retreat of the Knik River Glacier in Alaska. With her students, she'd even like to help predict the next time the nearby lake, Lake George, will flood as a result of the retreat.

As part of the workshop, teachers were also able to meet individually with Goddard scientists who conduct remote sensing research similar to the missions the teachers have planned. Goddard’s Dr. Claire Parkinson met with Pelletier to discuss her mission that will look at the retreat of the Knik River Glacier in Alaska. Parkinson described the teachers as enthusiastic and their missions exciting.

“For elementary and middle school students in particular, these missions could give them perhaps their first recognition that science can be exciting, fun, relevant and doable,” said Parkinson, Aqua project scientist. “It lets them see science as an on-going endeavor, not just a set of rules in a textbook or a repetition of lab experiments whose answers are already known.”

In exchange for the data and technology, the teachers are helping Goddard fine-tune an educational module that can be used in science curricula nationwide. The module will demonstrate how cutting edge NASA science and technology may be shared with the educational community.

“It was a two way workshop,” said Patrick Coronado, principle investigator for RSESTeP. “We provide the teachers with the tools, but we need their feedback to develop this education module that brings the Earth sciences to life. Then these teachers will be able to transfer their knowledge to their sister schools and fellow teachers.”

RSESTeP is a continuation of the relationship between NASA and JFE’s JASON Project, an expeditionary-based program that has united scientists and middle school students since its initial project in 1989. The JASON Project selects students and teachers to participate directly in real scientific expeditions. The research is broadcast live, via satellite and the Internet, to other JASON students and teachers around the world.

This past year’s JASON Project, JASON XIV: “From Shore to Sea”, involved the use of NASA’s remote sensing technology to study the Channel Islands off the coast of California. Teachers and students were able to plan research missions, generating significant interest in the remote sensing science, satellite, and remote control plane technologies. The desire to continue this type of research in the classroom led to the development of RSESTeP.

“My students are going to love this,” said Rose Hotchkiss, a teacher at Weaksville School and Pasquotank Elementary School in Elizabeth City, N.C. “They will absolutely love this. This truly is learning at its best.”

For more information about the JASON Foundation for Education, visit: http://www.jason.org/

A few sample missions:

Laura Amatulli, a teacher at Avondale Meadows in Detroit, Mich., would like to use the remote controlled plane and satellite data to look at the Great Lakes and their affect on water quality.

Cindy Duguay and her fourth and fifth grade students at Tripp Middle School in Turner, Maine, will look at the affect of a paper mill on the health of the Adroscoggin River.

Rose Hotchkiss, a teacher at Weaksville School and Pasquotank Elementary School in Elizabeth City, N.C., hopes to monitor wetlands with her fourth and fifth grade students.

Heather Pelletier, a teacher at Colony Middle School in Palmer, Ala., will look at the retreat of the Knik River Glacier with her sixth grade students. They hope to then predict the next time the nearby lake, Lake George, will flood as a result of the retreat.

Marjorie Sparks, a seventh grade teacher at St. Hugh’s in Greenbelt, Md., would like to look at the phosphate and nitrogen levels in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. She hopes that this research will help her students understand that what’s happening in their neighborhood has an affect on the condition of the Bay.

Kent Brandt, a teacher at Grand Blanc Middle School in Grand Blanc, Mich., will have his sixth grade students look at the damaging effects of the Emerald Ashborer beetle on millions of ash trees in North America. The beetles are hard to detect with satellite data alone, so Brandt hopes that the use of the remote control plane will assist in detecting the signatures of this beetle.

Kristin Daniels, an eighth grade teacher at Hill-Murray School in St. Paul, Minn., like many of the teachers of the workshop, is still trying to fine-tune her mission. Ideally, she would like to look at the bedrock of the Karst topography or analyze the wetland preserve across from her school.