Using Remote Sensing and Geospatial Technology for Climate Change Education

ABSTRACT

This curriculum and instruction paper describes initial implementation and evaluation of remote-sensing exercises designed to promote post-secondary climate literacy in the geosciences. Tutorials developed by the first author engaged students in the analysis of climate change data obtained from NASA satellite missions, including the LANDSAT, MODIS, ASTER, SSMIS, AIRS and GRACE instruments. The tutorials incorporated image processing technology through software such as ESRI's ArcGIS and ERDAS Imagine. The relative emphasis on the technological tools versus the application to improving knowledge about climate change was adjusted across implementation in three geography courses. The adjustment of the relative emphasis placed on four primary teaching and learning objectives provides a framework for considering adaptation of the exercises across the educational spectrum. For example, activities are already being designed to expand to secondary school and general elective undergraduate geography courses. Online material provides full details for implementation of each exercise and associated student-generated products. Pre- and post-course surveys provided student perspectives about the courses and their learning. Student performance on completion of the tutorials was monitored by the instructor and performance on independent course projects evaluated students' ability to learn and apply their knowledge and skills to problems of their choice. Survey and performance data illustrated that the tutorials were successful in meeting their intended learning objectives. Discussion highlights the unique opportunities these tutorials provided to engage introductory and advanced students in authentic and relevant analysis of satellite data to explore climate change.

Key words::

• satellite remote sensing
• geospatial technology
• GIS
• climate change

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank ESRI for their generous policy on educational licensing of ArcGIS for students. In addition they would like to acknowledge support for this project through a NASA Innovations in Climate Education grant NNX11AL97A, Mathematical and Geospatial Pathways to Climate Change Education. H.C. would like to thank Maziyar Boustani for his assistance in the development of the MODIS snow mapping tutorial. K.K. would like to thank Ka Yan Ng for assistance with the program evaluation data analysis.