mission geography skills spatial thinking and remote sensing
TRANSCRIPT
Mission Geography Skills
Spatial Thinking and Remote Sensing
Mission Geography Skills
• Key geographic skills…
• Five skills
• Remote sensing
Spatial Relations
• Skills needed to recognize spatial distribution and spatial patterns
• Identify shapes
• Recalling and representing layouts
• Connecting locations
• Associating and correlating spatially distributed phenomena
Spatial Relations (cont.)
• Comprehending and using spatial hierarchies
• Regionalizing• Comprehending distance decay and
nearest neighbor effects• Imagining maps from verbal descriptions• Sketch mapping• Comparing maps• Overlaying and dissolving maps
Why skills are important
• Provide necessary tools and techniques for thinking spatially
• Necessary for making wise personal, community, governmental, and business decisions
Community, government, and business decisions
Life skills
Five Core Skills
• Asking geographic questions– Where?
• Acquiring geographic information– Gathering data
• Organizing geographic information– Maps, reports, and more
• Analyzing geographic information– What does it mean?
• Answering geographic questions– What have I learned?
Asking Geographic Questions
• Why things are where they are and how they got there…– Where is it located?– Why is it there?– What else is there, too?– What are the consequences of the location and
associations of things there?– What is being observed?– What are my perceptions of it?
Asking Geographic Questions
Skills… Students identify geographic issues and
define problems Students ask geographic questions Students can plan and organize a
geographic research project• Specify a problem• Pose a research question or hypothesis• Identify areas in need of investigation• Test the hypothesis/answer the question
Acquiring Geographic Information
• What is geographic information?• Information about locations, • Human and physical characteristics of locations, • About the geographic activities and conditions of
humans who live there
• Kinds of geographic data?• Primary
• Field work, community-based learning
• Secondary• Texts, maps, statistics, photos, multimedia,
computer-based databases, telephone directories
Acquiring Geographic Information
Skills… Locating and collecting data
Maps, images, and a variety of other sources
Observation and systematic recording of information
Interpretation of maps and other graphics
Organizing Geographic Information
• Many ways to organize and present geographic information– Maps– Graphs, tables, spreadsheets, and timelines– Oral and written reports– Multimedia: pictures, maps, graphs, captions,
web pages– Poems, collages, plays, journal writing, and
essays
Analyzing Geographic Information
• Seeking patterns, relationships, and connections within geographic information
Maps/Images spatial patterns
Graphs trends/relationships
Data sequences, correlations, trends
Texts explanations/syntheses
Answering Geographic Questions
• Developing and making generalizations– Key ideas that students should learn at the
culmination of a process of inquiry– Requires that students
• Use the information they have collected, processed & analyzedOR
• Take the evidence they have acquired to make decisions, solve problems, or make judgments on a question, problem, or issue
Answering Geographic Questions
Organizing geographic information
Analyzing geographic information
Answering geographic questions
Askinggeographic questions
Acquiringgeographic information
• Last step in the process of inquiry…
Examples of MG Skills
• Graphing
• Measuring
• Regionalizing
• Map comparisons
• Nearest neighbor effects
• Connecting locations
Remote Sensing
‘science and art of identifying, observing, and measuring an object without coming into direct contact with it’
--a tool and technique
Remote Sensing
Process:– Detection and measurement of
ELECTROMAGENTIC RADIATION at different wavelengths reflected or emitted from distant objects/materials
– Data provides ability to identify Earth features & materials
Remote Sensing
• Purpose:– Identify and categorize by class/type,
substance, and spatial distributione.g., features in a scene (presented as image)
classified into categories or classesImage-->thematic map e.g., land use, vegetation types, rainfall
– Can also abstract information about an object
Color…
•Objects appear different at different wavelengths and produce different information, •Computers can be used to produce a color image from a black and white remote sensing data set.
Remote Sensing
• MethodsPLATFORM e.g., pigeon, balloon, airplane, satellite
Remote sensing instrument e.g., radiometer, radar, spectrometer [AVHRR, MODIS, ETM+]
Object, area, phenomenon viewed by sensor system
Remote Sensing
Platform + instrument: Satellite + sensor
Data from Earth orbiting satellites transmitted using radio waves to ground stations-->digital image.
Digital image-->tiny shapes “PIXELS”(represent the energy reflected
or emitted by each pixel)
Remote Sensing
• PIXEL = area on ground (& image) that is a measure of the sensor’s ability to resolve (see) objects of different sizes
15 meters
15 meters
Higher resolution (smaller pixel area)-->able to see smaller objects# of pixels in an image-->calculate area of a scene
Satellites
• Human-made spacecraft placed in space to orbit another body– Crewed e.g., space shuttle, ISS– Uncrewed e.g., TERRA
Satellite Orbits…
• Each satellite has a set path above Earth= orbit
• varies with satellite’s purpose– polar orbit (circular above poles to survey all
or portion of Earth as it turns below)– geosynchronous orbit (above equator at
35,888 km to match and “floating over” a point on equator
– Low Earth orbit e.g., Space shuttle– Elliptical orbit
Why bother?
Provide way-cool information…