windows around the world: seeing and recording change

Windows Around the World:Seeing and Recording Change

Juanita Urban-RichAlekhya Penigalapati

Jim Rich

What is Windows Around the World

• Web-based education and research tool that uses images as data

• It is a repository for images and allows users to come to one place and see multiple locations at once, to see (control) change, and to see the past/present

• www.windowsaroundtheworld.org

Look Out the Window

Library

Qualitative Visibility Scale

Bad Good

Daily Filmstrips

Education…

• Activities and Units will be developed using the images

• Images can help illustrate processes (precipitation & evaportion), ecosystem comparisons

• Time-lapse can help demonstrate change

Tracking Usage

Where are we at…

• Working with the UMASS Boston data center to move to a virtual server

• Working with the NPS to begin obtaining the image data

• Working to update, revamp WAW website

National Park Links and Advantage

• Linking to the National Park Web Cam Air Quality program: provides lots a imagery and geographic coverage

• Provides quantitative data on visibility

Advantage or Inputs from WAW• All imagery shown on one map so one place and you can see what

it looks like in different places (see fig below)• Time-lapse movies showing processes (seasons, storms, weather,

vegetation)• Links a few schools with local imagery (from their own school) to

regional and national imagery to help them see processes on different spatial scales and temporal scales

• Processes and imagery could be linked to air pollution, visibility and deposition– Actual data could be from parks but it can then be asked if you have this

happening at the park during this season or this weather event, what might be happening here in our town – why? Or what might be happening today? (a relevant question to put into activities accessed by parks…)

• This is tricky because the why could be due to many different factors but it can stimulate thinking at any age level

Locations

Potential WAW views

Locations

Potential WAW views

Look Out the Window