Education and Outreach Activities

"Observations of Snow Cover from the Ground and Space" is a 17-minute educational video that uses computer animation, satellite imagery and live action video to show how snow research benefits our everyday lives. The video highlights the use of satellites to monitor snow cover, with a focus on the advances made by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument launched onboard the Terra spacecraft in December of 1999.

In this video, you will see satellite images, and live-action video of snow cover and flooding. The video also shows how the 1996-97 snow cover led to spring flooding in the mid-west, how snow crystals are studied using scanning electron microscopy, and how "depth hoar" crystals are related to avalanche formation. Animations, constructed at the Invision Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center, are provided to illustrate some of the complex principles that underlie the remote sensing of snow.

High school and college educators and museum directors can obtain the video by contacting Dr. Dorothy Hall, email Dorothy.K.Hall AT nasa.gov. Please provide the postal mailing address of your school or museum when requesting the video. The video may also be mailed to state and local government facilities.

This image is part of the Fire! Event Based Science activity. The white outline displays the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park in early July of 1986, before fires cleared much of the land.

Event-Based Science is a new way to teach science at the middle school level. Newsworthy events establish the relevance of science topics; authentic tasks create the need-to-know more about those topics; and lively interviews, photographs, Web pages, and inquiry-based science activities create a desire to know more about those topics. The Event-Based Science Project is supported by grants from National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Scientists from the Goddard Space Flight Center help produce remote-sensing activities that are tied directly to EBS modules.

Satellite image of Muir Inlet in 1986. The Glacier Bay website includes an animated "fly by" of the Muir Inlet.

This web site is based on the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center video, "Glacier Bay, Alaska, from the Ground, Air and Space," which brings glaciers to life with spectacular "fly-bys" of scenic rides over 3-dimensional glaciers, live video footage of ice fronts calving into the sea, dramatic picture sequences of historic and satellite data, and more. This award-winning web site presents many of the stunning images and dramatic movie sequences from the Glacier Bay video, as well as additional footage, animations, and reference material. The Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) of GSFC's Earth and Space Data Computing Division produced the video under the direction and guidance of Dr. Dorothy K. Hall/Code 974, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes at GSFC's Hydrological Sciences Branch.