I have been working with teachers and students to develop scientific projects where students take observations through the GLOBE Program, share them on the internet and research real-world scientific problems. I have found that when the students are doing real science, they are more interested in learning science. I will be traveling in the mountain states from June 12 to July 7. My goal is to meet and visit teachers in New Mexico who may be interested in learning more about projects that students can do. I’ll be traveling with my two sons, Robby (14) and Timmy (10). We are in for an adventure.

Day 1:
We drove from our home in Temperance, MI to Naperville, IL to meet with Greg Lapotka. Greg volunteers at the Morton Arboretum and has students come to take GLOBE observations. It sounds like a great opportunity for the kids. It normally costs $10-$14 to get in but Greg has worked to make it so it is free for the families taking the observations. They have a GLOBE station set up for air temperature and precipitation. They do green up and green down with the nice trees. They also take surface temperature observations for my surface temperature field campaign each year.

We were late getting to the arboretum because it was rush hour. I took a wrong turn that cost us 30 minutes of time. When we got to the arboretum though, it was raining very hard. Several roads were closed in the arboretum so our visit was limited. Timmy was interested in the pervious parking lot that let the rain water in. We got a first hand look at it. Greg is a big Chicago Blackhawks fan and he is very excited that his team is in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Day 2:
We drove to Cedar Falls, Iowa to visit with Marcy Seavey, 3 teachers and 5 students she organized to meet with us. Marcey is the Project Director of the Iowa Academy of Sciences. On the way, we stopped at Castle Rock State Park in Illinois and took a hike and then we went to Antique Archaeology that is featured on the American Pickers TV show.

Our visit with Marcy, the teachers and students was a great sharing opportunity. A new Orange Elementary School was built down the road and the kids took the latitude and longitude using the GPS protocol. The kids also took surface temperature readings around the Arboretum.

Then, one of the teachers and her students shared with us a project that they did for the International Space Station (ISS). It was interesting because her 7th grade students used the term ISS like everyone should know what it is.

Timmy showed everyone the thermal camera. He showed them how the camera can image a hand through a black garbage bag but cannot image the hand through clear plexiglass.

Marcy provided pizza and drinks. It was a really nice time.

Day 3:
We then took the long drive to visit with Paul Adams. Paul is a professor in science education at Fort Hays State University. His wife, four children and the wife of his oldest son hosted a wonderful dinner for us. Hays is very far from anywhere.

We stopped about 60 miles east of Hays to take a bike ride amongst the wind turbines of a wind farm. Can you tell that it was very windy?

Day 4:
We made it to Boulder, Colorado where I’m helping with a train-the-trainer workshop to train GLOBE trainers. The workshop is June 17-19. I led atmosphere training for the trainers on June 17. I had the participants research the protocols for atmosphere: air temperature, precipitation, soil temperature, surface temperature, clouds and condensation trails and relative humidity. There are a lot of nice people being trained to be trainers for GLOBE. It is really exciting to see.

More to come. Dr. C

In addition, the students developed research questions related to the temperatures of the playground. They wanted to know what the hottest surfaces were on the playground. Several of the students had gotten blisters by playing on the monkey bars. Their research showed that the metal of the bars was very hot and may have contributed.

Students in Mrs. Maria Milagros Gallegos Rioja science course at Colegio San Ignacio de Recalde in Lima Peru noted that their weather was “irregular”. Temperatures varied quite a bit from day to day. Students in Michigan found the same things. One day the temperatures they measured were around 25 C and then next they were 10 C. The temperature bounced around and the weather changed from cold to warm back to cold.

Fig. 1: Students taking GLOBE observations at Ida Elementary School.

Fig. 2: Students in Lima, Peru taking GLOBE observations.

The students in Peru complained about the cold weather they were having. It turned out that the temperatures were about the same in Michigan, but because it was the start of spring, the students in Michigan considered those temperatures warm (about 20 C). The Michigan students were very surprised that Christmas occurs in Peru in their summer. It was the discussion about Christmas that helped both groups figure out that the seasons are opposite, summer in Michigan is winter in Peru and vice versa.

The students in Peru have been studying English for many years and the collaboration was a chance for the students to practice their English. The students in Michigan will have their first Spanish class in 7th grade. This was was an opportunity for them to start learning some phrases like hola (hello), Cómo te llamas? (what is your name?), and Ciao (the way they say goodbye in Peru).

The day of the first Skype call was one of the Michigan student’s 10th birthday. The students in Peru wished him a happy birthday by singing “Feliz cumpleanos a ti!”.

The students worked with Dr. Kevin Czajkowski from the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. Dr. Czajkowski is a GLOBE scientist as well as being the director of the University of Toledo’s GLOBE Partnership. He assisted with the collaboration and helped the students interpret the data they gathered.

There were some technical problems that the students had to overcome. On the final Skype call, the microphone in Peru stopped working. The students in Michigan explained the results of the projects and had to ask if the students in Peru could hear them. A thumbs up was used to indicate that they could.

After the final Skype call, the students in Michigan wanted to continue their collaboration next year in fifth grade. The last day of school in Michigan is June 10, 2013. The students will come back to school in fifth grade in September. The students in Peru just started their school year and will be going through October.

http://landsat.usgs.gov/about_LU_Vol_7_Issue_3.php#1a

Landsat Mission News
Welcome Landsat 8!

Since 1972, Landsat satellites have collected information about Earth from space. On February 11, 2013, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) was launched successfully to continue the repetitive acquisition of high quality multispectral data of the Earth’s surface. Since launch, checkout activities have included systems initialization and calibration activities, directing the spacecraft to perform orbit maneuvers, and moving into operational orbit (WRS-2).

On May 30, 2013, the checkout period was completed, and the USGS officially became the operational manager of the Mission during an official ceremony. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission will henceforth be known as Landsat 8. Landsat 8 is designed for a 5-year lifespan, and carries 10 years of fuel onboard. Data products from Landsat 8 are now available for download to all users at no charge from EarthExplorer (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov), GloVis (http://glovis.usgs.gov), and the LandsatLook Viewer (http://landsatlook.usgs.gov)!

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Landsat Product Information
Landsat 8 Data Product Details

The data products available from Landsat 8 are processed to be consistent with Landsat 1 through 7 data products. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments onboard are providing over 400 new scenes per day.

Processing details include:

GeoTIFF output format
Cubic Convolution (CC) resampling method
30-meter (OLI multispectral); 15-meter (OLI panchromatic); 100-meter (TIRS) pixel sizes
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) map projection (Polar Stereographic in Antarctica)
World Geodetic System (WGS) 84 datum
MAP (North-up) image orientation
Data products are 16-bit

Landsat 8’s additional bands will create a larger data file size, at approximately 1 GB with compression. (See http://landsat.usgs.gov/band_designations_landsat_satellites.php for band designations for all Landsat sensors). More information can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_DataProduct.php.

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Product News
New Multispectral Scanner (MSS) Data Available

The workhorse of the Landsat 5 mission was the Thematic Mapper (TM) instrument. After the TM sensor failed in November 2011, the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) instrument was brought back online a few months later. The MSS had not acquired data for over a decade.

While the MSS was acquiring data, the Landsat ground station was crafting new capabilities to ingest the raw instrument data. The data have recently been successfully ingested and are available from EarthExplorer, GloVis, and LandsatLook Viewer. More details on the new MSS data are available at http://landsat.usgs.gov/NewMSSProduct.php.
Old Metadata Format Removed

Since August 2012, all Landsat products have included a new metadata format to align with operational data from the Landsat Data Continuity Mission/Landsat 8. The historic metadata file was included to allow users enough transition time to adjust to the new format.

Although a number of scenes will continue to have both metadata files until the data is removed from Downloadable status and reprocessed, Landsat scenes processed after April 29, 2013 will no longer have the “*_MTLold.txt” file.
Landsat 8 Quality Assessment Band Information

The new Quality Assessment (QA) band is an important addition to Landsat 8 data files. Each pixel in the QA band contains a decimal value that represents bit-packed combinations of surface, atmosphere, and sensor conditions that can affect the overall usefulness of a given pixel.

Used effectively, QA bits improve the integrity of science investigations by indicating which pixels might be affected by instrument artifacts or subject to cloud contamination. Details about the Landsat 8 QA band can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/L8QualityAssessmentBand.php.
Landsat 8 Reflectance and Radiance Conversions

Standard Landsat 8 data products are delivered in 16-bit unsigned integer format. To match data products from Landsat 1 through Landsat 7, the Landsat 8 data can be rescaled to the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance and/or radiance using radiometric rescaling coefficients provided in the product metadata file (MTL file). The MTL file also contains the thermal constants needed to convert TIRS data to the at-satellite brightness temperature.

Conversion formulas to TOA Radiance, TOA Reflectance, and At-Satellite Brightness Temperature are located at http://landsat.usgs.gov/Landsat8_Using_Product.php.
Questions about Landsat 8?

Questions about Landsat 8, the Landsat Missions, or Landsat data products can be directed to Landsat Customer Services: custserv@usgs.gov.

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Tips and Tricks
Learning More about Landsat Surface Reflectance Climate Data Records

Landsat Surface Reflectance products are available on-demand from the archive of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data. The 30+ year archive of data enables the generation of Climate Data Records (CDRs) to support land surface change studies and the creation of other geophysical and biophysical parameters.

Landsat surface reflectance CDRs are generated using the Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS), originally developed through a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) grant by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the University of Maryland (Masek et al., 2008). The software is an adaptation of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) atmospheric correction routines to process Level-1 Landsat TM or ETM+ data.

Water vapor, ozone, geopotential height, aerosol optical thickness, and digital elevation data are used with Landsat data as inputs to the Second Simulation of a Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S) radiative transfer model to generate top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance, surface reflectance, brightness temperature, and masks for clouds and cloud shadows. The results are bundled and delivered as the Landsat surface reflectance CDR product.

Landsat Surface Reflectance CDRs are available to download from EarthExplorer (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov). Additional information about Surface Reflectance CDR’s can be found at http://landsat.usgs.gov/documents/cdr_sr_product_guide.pdf.

Masek, J.G., Huang, C., Wolfe, R., Cohen, W., Hall, F., Kutler, J., and Nelson, P. (2008). North American forest disturbance mapped from a decadal Landsat record. Remote Sensing of Environment. 112:2914-2926.

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Landsat Image of Interest
LDCM Long Swath Visualization

On April 19, 2013, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission passed over one long swath from Russia to southern Africa: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/landsat/news/russia-south-africa.html.

Our mission partners at NASA crafted a beautiful fly-over that includes this image of the Ethiopian Highlands (Lake Tana is in the upper right).
Landsat Image of Interest

The website for the Nenana Ice Classic is:

http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/

You can look at the break-up dates on the brochure on the website. They are on side B.There is also a graph over time here.

http://futurehistoric.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/nenana-ice-classic-2011-result/

The average date that the ice goes is about May 5. Today it is May 19 so the ice is still in very late. The latest date on record was in 1964 when the ice went out on May 20. It has been cold in Alaska the last couple of days. This may be a record breaking year.

This data series of ice break-up has been used as an example of climate change/global warming. The ice has been going out earlier and earlier in the last 20 years. Some questions come to my mind. Does this year’s record affect the conclusion that climate change is making ice break-up earlier in the spring? Is the a fluke or part of a new trend? What do you think about it?

In addition, ice has been going out late in northern Minnesota and southern Canada. It was a cool spring in those areas.

Students have developed their research projects over the last several months. Many used GLOBE protocols of surface temperature, clouds, snow and water quality. Other students gathered data off of NASA websites or used satellite imagery like Landsat. They presented their projects on poster boards and shared them at the conference Tuesday.

The science was good, the students were engaged and the trophies were big. Steve Frantz from Roswell-Kent Middle School in Akron, OH and his students gave the keynote address. He did a great job of highlighting all of the different projects that his students work on and the contests they won. One student won a contest to make use of a potato chip bag. She made a birdhouse.

Here is a video of the conference.

Here are the winners by grade level.

Congratulations everyone

Students took observations near their school of a grassy area and an asphalt surface.

The Earth has warmed over the last 50 years and continues to warm. In addition, over the same time period, urban areas have expanded leading to increased warming of cities exasperating summer heat waves. Satellites can observe the temperature of cities and their surrounding areas. In situ observations are needed to validate the satellite temperatures. Student observations of surface temperature can contribute to the validation of the surface temperature.

Dr. Kevin Czajkowski from the University of Toledo hosted the first spring AmericaView/GLOBE Surface Temperature field day on April 10 and 22, 2013, Earth Observation Day. On this two day event, we supported students to take surface temperature. Students entered data on the GLOBE website or they sent the data to AmericaView Director Rick Landenberger, Rick.Landenberger@mail.wvu.edu.

This year, some of the GLOBE Scientists developed videos explaining how to take surface temperature observations. Here is a video of Rick Landenberger from West Virginia University taking his surface temperature observations.

Nektaria Adaktilou, a GLOBE Scientist from the University of Athens, described how to take surface temperature observations in both English and Greek.

And, here is her instructions in Greek.

 Looking at the data

The schools that took observations during the surface temperature observation days were:

Ida Elementary School, Michigan USA

Main Street School, Ohio, USA

California University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA

West Virginia University, VW, USA

3rd Lyceum of Algaleo, Athens, Greece

Brazil High School, Trinidad and Tobago

Killingi-Nomme Gymnasium, Estonia

Here are students at Ida Elementary School taking surface temperature observations.

Ida Ts 4-23-13

Here are students at Brazil High School in Trinidad and Tobago discussing the clouds when taking their surface temperature observations.

AmericaView is a consortium of 36 states working together to promote the use of remote sensing and other geospatial technologies.

http://www.americaview.org/

AmericaView and GLOBE have a partnership that goes back at least 10 years. GLOBE brings the field observations and AmericaView brings in the remote sensing/geospatial technologies.

I’m writing to share a very cool 3D visual summary of last months climate that includes comparisons to last March.
It’s educational and interesting and a mere 3 minutes long – check it out!
http://sphere.ssec.wisc.edu/20130422/

http://wyomingview.blogspot.com/

Sarah’s urban heat island study wins third place in the 2013 Wyoming State Science Fair

 Sarah Arulsamy, an 8th grader in Laramie Junior School, studied how different natural and man-made (artificial) surfaces in Laramie absorbed radiation at different times of the day.

Temperature data collected by her at 5 different locations on 3 different days, revealed that concrete pavements and asphalt roads absorbed relatively more heat in the morning (between 8 am and 1 pm) and released relatively less heat in the afternoon and evening (between 1 pm and 8 pm) in comparison to natural surfaces (grass lawns and bare ground). As a result asphalt roads and concrete pavements continued to be warmer (25°C or 77°F) at 8 pm in comparison to bare ground and lawns (17°C or 63°F). This excess heat stored by artificial surfaces is released during the night time due to the fact that the temperature differences between all surfaces were less at 8 am next day. Similar data collected in fall and winter seasons did not show such drastic variations in the temperatures of different features.

Sarah presented her research findings in the 2013 Wyoming State Science Fair in Laramie on 3/5/2013 and won the third place in the Junior Environmental Sciences category.

During the course of this work she noted that the average summer temperature at 1pm of tire mulch, an artificial surface in a children’s park, was 58°C (136°F). Based on this finding she recommended that the city has to post warning signs to alert parents about potential dangers to unsuspecting children. Her research was supported by WyomingView. She plans to continue this research in the summer of 2013 by including additional sites and more frequent measurements.

As you can see in the picture, the ice on Lake Erie is broken up into things that look like islands. The wind blows the ice around and breaks it up. There is a straight line through Lake St. Clair that extends down into Lake Erie. What do you think caused this straight line? Usually, on Earth, straight lines are produced by humans.

Figure 1: MODIS satellites image of Lake Erie February 6, 2013.

Figure 2: MODIS satellite image of Lake Erie from January 24, 2013.

As you can see, on January 24, 2013, just two weeks ago, the Western basin of Lake Erie was ice covered and  there was some ice on the northern side of the lake. You can see that areas of Southern Ontario north of Lake Erie did not have snow on the ground on January 24, 2013 and then on February 6, 2013, there is snow.

As part of GLOBE’s Seasons and Biomes Earth System Science Program (ESSP), I have taken pictures of the Ottawa River that flows through the University of Toledo and then empties into Lake Erie. http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/spotlights/2012/globe-workshop I took pictures from the shore across the river and then from the bridge upstream and downstream.

Figure 3: GLOBE Seasons and Biomes instructions for taking pictures of ice cover.

You can see in the pictures that the river has ice along the banks. Why is the river not frozen while the lake is? Last week, the river was completely ice covered. But, when temperatures went way up and it rained, the ice melted and washed away.

Figure 4: Picture of the Ottawa River from a) across, b) upstream, and c) downstream

a) across

b) Upstream

c) downstream

Be sure to be safe around ice.

Dr. C

• Be humorous!
• Address the issue of climate change. We are interpreting the topic very broadly, so it includes topics like disasters, fossil fuels, clean energy, wildlife (like polar bears), politics, deniers, and so on.
• Reach a broad audience.
• Be an original production.
• Be less than three minutes (including titles and credits).
• Posted to Eco-Comedy Video Competition 2013 YouTube Channel at:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ecocomedy2013.
• Submitted by 11:59pm Eastern Time Zone on Friday, March 1, 2013.