Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
12:30pm - 4:30pm
Our afternoon professional development was led by Ms. Paige Valderrama Graff, a former middle school teacher and current NASA employee in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) area. Ms. Valderrama Graff introduced us to a program called "Expedition Earth and Beyond", which was designed to get students interested in Earth (and beyond) by showing images from space, as well as other interesting materials to capture them and allow them to explore science further.
The website for the ARES Exploration Earth and Beyond page can be found at http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/ares/eeab/.
One exciting opportunity for classroom interaction is a project where students can use the online resources to research and learn about a certain area of the Earth, and when the students have completed their research, they can send a request to NASA to have an astronaut take a picture of this area from space and send them a copy.
Some examples are:
The Ad Wadj Bank with a coral reef off of Saudi Arabia
Mount Uweinat in Egypt/Libia/Sudan
Spheres of Earth, Part 1:
The first activity we completed during this development was a quick word sort in which we had to work in teams to decide which elements of earth (e.g. hurricanes, glaciers, forests, coral reef) belong in which sphere (hydosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere).
*Remember to note that changes in one environment will cause changes in other environments!
Spheres of Earth, Part 2:
For the second part of this activity, each group received three photos of the earth from space and were asked to collect observations of the photos based on all of the spheres visible.
For example, our first photo was of an island with a coral reef off of the coast of the Honduras. The earth systems associated with this picture included a geosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.
We made the following observations about the spheres:
Feature: Land Earth System: Geosphere Observations: Dark green & light brown, irregularly shaped
Feature: Water Earth System: Hydrosphere Observations: Dark blue, surrounds land on all sides
Feature: Coral Reefs Earth System: Biosphere Observations: Only partly visible, light brown with white ring
We made observations of three total pictures similar of different aspects of Earth, including one of a hurricane, and another of an impact crater.
Spheres of Earth, Part 3:
Due to time constraints, we did not complete the third part of the activity. In the classroom, students would present their observations to the class during part 3 of this activity.
Spheres of Earth, Part 4:
For the final part of this project, we went back to the pictures we looked at in part 3 (of the different visuals of Earth from space) and chose one that had an interesting feature we wanted to learn more about. We chose the picture of the impact crater in Canada because we found it very interesting that the only aspect of the crater that was still left was a round lake around the outside.
We then had to write a question that would allow us to answer using other space imaging.
Our question was based on how the land filled in and eroded to form the circular lake, and whether other impact craters on Earth had a similar process.
(The answer is that the crater was made so long ago that it got filled in over time. The Earth eroded along the outer ring of the crater, causing the annular lake with a misleading island-looking land mass in the middle.)
Our solution was to have pictures taken of other impact craters in which the erosion process had already started so that we could see this process in different phases.
Blue Marble Matches
This four-part activity had students practicing viewing pictures from space and using detailed adjectives to describe the photographs. I will provide a short description of each part, but you can find the whole lesson online here.
Part 1: Observations and Descriptions - Students 'warm up' to descriptions by listening to the teacher describing some of the pictures and guessing which number picture the description corresponded with. Some of the examples would be:
"I am looking at a picture with many channels which feed in to many smaller channels. It looks to be a rocky or rugged terrain with very dark features. There are many 'fingers' throughout the area which look like the surface of a leaf."
After the students practice guessing the pictures based on the descriptions, it might be a good idea to have them practice descriptions by choosing a picture in their head and seeing if their partner or elbow buddy can guess which picture they are describing.
Part 2: Identification Criteria
For part 2, student will use the descriptions they just learned to read a graph of aeolian (wind), impact, fluvial, and volcanic processes and decide which pictures match up with the descriptions listed.
For example, "Feature has a very dendritic-like pattern; similar to the vein-like pattern within a leaf" (This would be the picture of the drainage network shown above)
Part 3: Feature Recognition and Review
Again building upon the information that the students have already learned and practiced, students will complete another graph in which they must list identification criteria, main geologic feature, and main geologic process of different images. To summarize, students are responsible for more and more of a table with each step of the process. To support this activity, each group received one picture and were asked to write our results on a post-it. We then taped our pictures and descriptions to a chart that was made on the wall with painter's tape. The following is a quick example:
Part 4: Using Earth for Planetary Comparisons
You can probably predict what part four consisted of based on the empty spaces of the graph. For part four, each group received pictures from another body in the solar system: the moon, Mars, or Venus. Based on these space images, we had to classify the phenomenon that was going on in the picture, just like we had done with the Earth photos.
For example, our group received about eight pictures of the surface of the moon from outer space. We had to decide if the pictures were of something that was aeolian in nature (caused by wind), fluvial (caused by water), volcanic, or impact-related. Based on our prior knowledge of the moon, we knew right away that none of our pictures would be aeolian or fluvial, because the Earth has no water, nor an atmosphere for wind. Most of our pictures were of craters, so they were impact related.
When each group made their decisions, they brought their pictures to the wall and placed them on the chart in the appropriate place.
This was my favorite part of the activity because I felt like we were using everything we had already learned that day to act like real scientists. The activity involved a lot of critical thinking and made us use apply our knowledge.
This activity is intended for grades 4 through 12, and can be adapted to suit various needs, ages, abilities, and grades.
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