Modeling Satellite Remote Sensing

A covert military operation examines "intel" from images obtained using satellites and cameras on unmanned airplanes. A meteorologist at the National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, analyzes a series of satellite images and other data to predict the path and potential for destruction of a mounting tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean. A video cameraman records a report by a television journalist at the edge of a growing forest fire that is broadcast live to homes hundreds of miles away. A radiologist uses an x-ray to "see" the broken bone in a young child's arm. A geologist working for a petroleum company studies a multispectral image from a Landsat satellite to determine the probable presence of subterranean gas and oil in a specific region. What do they all have in common?

Remote sensing: using a sensor to detect changes in reflected light at a place other than one we can directly see with our own eyes. That is a loose definition, but the concept is not. Though some remote sensing shown in motion picture stories is fiction, the evolving technology is very real and increasing accessible. During the more than half century since the first launch of an artificial satellite, the body of knowledge has grown immensely about which wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are most reflected by which features of the Earth's surface and various components of the atmosphere.

In this lesson, you will build a simple electronic light sensor that transmits a radio signal when activated by light. The transmitted signal can be received with any FM radio and is heard as an audible tone. The quality of the tone varies with the intensity of the light striking the sensor. Learners will use the sensor to observe and measure the relative amount of light of various colors when reflected from different surfaces.

Next Generation Science Standards addressed in this lesson:
    HS-PS3-3     HS-PS4-4     HS-PS4-5