In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.
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Because it recognizes the importance of U.S. coastal areas to the nation's economy, the U.S. National Ocean Service has formed a task force that is studying the trends and impacts of hurricanes on coastal regions. They have invited your students to participate.
In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
Students are divided into three different groups and are assigned a category of drivers of change in regional trends of freshwater storage (Climate Change, Human Activity, and Natural Variability).
This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.