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TEACHING THE LESSON

Materials      

  • An LCD projector to share the Windows on Earth with the class
  • Student Worksheets
  • Internet connected computers

Student Instructions

Student Worksheets

Lesson Preparation

1. Students should have a basic understanding of the International Space Station and its orbit. You should complete the activity “How do we track the space station’s location?” prior to this activity.

2. Review the instructions for Using Windows on Earth, the Guided Tours and Take a Snapshot feature.

3. Review the Challenger Kids’ Earth Science Forum Instructions for having students post their work.  You should register them yourself (individually or by team) or have them register themselves. Students will have to have their parents sign a Media Release form to participate in the moderated forum.    

  • Register your students at http://www.challengerkids.org.
    The forum is moderated by education staff from Challenger Center for Space Science Education and is an integral part of the project as students will be sharing their work with others from around the world and with NASA. Students will upload their photos and journals in Activity #2. Challenger Center moderate all postings and registrations.

4. Review the student worksheets; make copies.

5. Review the links below on Astronaut Photography and Global Climate Change, as seen from space:

  • The Gateway of Astronaut Photography - The most complete online collection of astronaut photographs of the Earth, The database tracks the locations, supporting data, and digital images for astronaut’s photographs from the Mercury missions in the early 1960s to the ISS. Images coming down from the International Space Station are processed on a daily basis. 777,550 views of the Earth include 331,695 from the International Space Station.
    http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/
  • Astronaut Views of the Home Planet: Earth from Space - Searchable database by cities, Earth landscapes, Earth-Human Interactions, Distinctive features, hurricanes and weather, Earth’s Water Habitats, Geographic Regions. http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/

6. Select a series of images to show the students (prior to using the Windows on Earth Guided Tour) as examples of images take by astronauts.  You can choose your own from this website

or

Use one of the Clickable Maps and let students choose their own places to see:

Activity 1 – Windows on Earth (Guided Tours)

Ask students how we could see what the astronauts see from space?  They might reply, use Google Earth, or go to the Web.  Google Earth gives you a great deal of coverage of the planet, but to specifically see what they astronauts are seeing right now, you need to use a tool that creates

  1. The flight path of the ISS in real time
  2. The view out the window of the ISS

Go to the Windows on Earth website at http://winearth.terc.edu

Show them the current live view from the ISS. Have students try to guess or point out using the guide map at the bottom where the ISS is.  Feel free to Zoom In, and Change the Window View.

You might be over water or over land. If the students notice that you should be in the nighttime, tell them they are right!

View over the Pacific Ocean
Click for a larger image.

 

As the ISS goes from day to night every 45 minutes in its orbit, it may be in nighttime while you are looking using Windows on Earth.  The software automatically is set for always day, but if you want students to see the view from the ISS if is in night - just click on configure and then choose “always night”.  You can always switch it back to day.  You can also remove the Target labels, scale and orientation to North.

Remind students that the image database is from 2005, so while the location of the ISS is correct in real time, the view today from the actual space station may look different and would certainly include some cloud cover in different parts of the world. Windows on Earth has removed the clouds to allow you to see the surface clearly; clouds often obstruct clear pictures of the Earth (unless you are trying to photograph a hurricane!) 

 
South American coastline
Click for a larger image.
 

Ask the students how long they would have to wait for the ISS to be flying over The Grand Canyon? (If you have completed the “How do we track the space station’s location?” activity, they will be quick to reply hours or days). 

You can use the multiple orbit link from Windows on Earth to show that it could be hours or days.

 
Sample Orbital Passes
Click for a larger image.
  

Tell your students that today they are going to begin exploring some different places on Earth using the Guided Tours from the Windows on Earth website. 

They will be acting like astronauts and scientists as they observe the Earth from Space. They will be trying to determine what features you can see from the ISS and what that tells us about the Earth and that particular region.

Show the students two of the ten Guided Tours, being sure to have them note the map at the bottom showing that they are from different parts of an orbit, and not necessarily the same orbit at all, but could be from a different day.

[Snapshot from Guided Tour]
Click for a larger image.

With your students in small groups, or individually, have them go through two more of the Guided Tours that are of interest to them, or divide up the tours between groups so that all tours are taken by some students.

After completing the worksheet, students should present their work, sharing their observations with the rest of the class.

If there is time, they can go back to see where the ISS is now in it’s orbit of the Earth at the Windows on Earth website (in real time).

If you choose to extend the project to 2 class periods, have students choose one of the two areas they observed and use the Library or approved web resources for your classroom to research that area of the world. Students can make a video or presentation about the area of the planet to share with the rest of the class.

Activity 2 – Past, Present, Future Earth

Ask your students, “If we wanted to find out what a place was like in the past to compare it to what it is like now, how could we do it?”

Answers can include:

  1. Find an old photo and compare it to a new one
  2. Ask someone who is older what it was like in the past
  3. Look at old books to read about what it was like then and then go to the place to see what it is like now

Visit the Windows on Earth Guided Tour with your class.  Choose one of the Guided Tours and explain that they are going to check out the set of comparison photos are available for viewing in their tour.  They will download the images and then open them on the computer or print them out and compare the two images. One image is from the early days of astronaut photography in the 1960s or 1970s, and the second image is from 2005.

[Snapshot of Yellow Circle Guided Tour #1]
Click for a larger image.

 

When the yellow circle of the comparison images comes into view, click on it. You will see the images side by side. Right click on each one to download it.

Open them and have students look at the detail of the older one FIRST.  Have one student write down on the board everyone’s comments on what they can see in the image.

Then open the second, more recent image. Have one student write down on the board everyone’s comments on what they can see in the image, noting the differences and speculating on why they are different.

[Comparison Set of Images from Guided Tour #1]
Click for a larger image.

 

Have students in small groups, or individually, visit two different Guided Tours from Windows on Earth that they have not been to before. Tell them that not only will they have to download and compare the images, but also they will have to predict what the area will look like in 30 years.

Have students complete the Student Journal – Past, Present, Future.  Students should save their work on the computer and share their findings with the rest of the class.

Then have students visit http://www.challengerkids.org and use their user name and password for their account, or their team’s account (that you have made for or with them – see Lesson Preparation and Instructions).

At the forum students should post their images and journal text for sharing with others. If time, they can comment on other student’s posted journals.

[Snapshot of the Challenger Kids website]
Click for a larger image.

Extension Activity

The follow activities are for students interested in learning how to spot change over time in satellite images of the planet.

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