Let us introduce you to Katrina Laygo and Melissa Oguamanam from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Melissa and Katrina are the Center Leads for the DEVELOP Program’s Goddard location. NASA’s DEVELOP Program is a student-led research internship that focuses on using NASA Earth observations to address community concerns and public policy issues.

This USGS activity leads students to an understanding of what remote sensing means and how researchers use it to study changes to the Earth’s surface, such as deforestation. 

In this activity, students explore the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon by collecting temperatures of different materials with respect to their locations.  

Students analyze historic plant growth data (i.e., Peak Bloom dates) of Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees, as well as atmospheric near surface temperatures as evidence for explaining the phenomena of earlier Peak Blooms in our nation’s capital.

This investigation introduces students to the significant environmental changes occurring around the world. The investigation uses NASA satellite images of Brazil to illustrate deforestation as one type of environmental change.

The purpose of this activity is to have students use an Earth Systems perspective to identify the various causes associated with changes to Earth's forests as they review Landsat imagery of site locations from around the world.