Category Archives: Activity

Greetings from Camp Landsat: Cities and Suburbs

By Activity, Education, Environmental Change, Landsat, NASA, Observation, Outreach, Remote Sensing, , , , , , , , , , ,

Greetings from Camp Landsat!

Postcards From Camp: Cities & Suburbs
Are you exploring any cities this summer? Rain or shine, urban planners use Landsat to take stock of city growth and its environmental impact. The front of this postcard features a natural-color Landsat 8 image of Ocean Flower Island in Hainan, China acquired May 6, 2020.

This week’s camp theme is Cities and Suburbs and focuses on the growth of cities and urban areas as seen over time through Landsat images. Urban growth has impacts on the surrounding environment. Visit Camp Landsat to learn more and experience a time-laspse video of urban growth in Qatar, a storymap about urbanization of vacation towns, and learn about urban heat islands in Minnesota. This week’s camp crafts include Color by Number Image Classification and creating a bird house with a “green roof.” Thank you to our friends at NASA for making this fun summer camp possible!

Camp Landsat Counts Down to the Landsat 9 Launch

By Activity, Announcement, Education, Event, Game, Imagery, Landsat, NASA, Outreach, Resource, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Each week NASA’s Landsat Science team will explore a unique aspect of Landsat earth science (see themes below). Weekly features include Landsat related crafts and games, revisiting each sequential Landsat mission as well a weekly postcard from camp. Stop by each week of camp to explore a new theme.

#ConnectedByEarth – Earth Day 2021!

By Activity, Earth Day, Education, Event, Imagery, NASA, Phenology, Remote Sensing, Resource, , , ,

This year NASA’s Earth Day theme is #ConnectedByEarth. Visit the NASA Earth Day Poster website to watch a short video about the inspiration for the poster and discover the gems hidden within the poster. Download your copy of the poster to learn more about bees and our natural world.

Happy Earth Week 2021!

By Activity, Earth Day, Education, Event, Outreach, Resource, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Earth Day Poster by Brazilian artist – Septo

Here are some ways to celebrate:

A. Get outside – enjoy the beauty of the earth and mark your observations.
Consider joining a citizen science project such as Nature’s Notebook or GLOBE observer Tree Challenge.



B. Explore our beautiful Earth with Ellie Leydsman McGinty’s (UtahView) Earth as Art 4 tour.

C. Learn some new GIS skills with resources from AmericaView members: Google Earth Engine (GeorgiaView), QGIS (WestVirginiaView), or ArcGIS Pro (VirginiaView).

D. Put together an Earth image Puzzle.

IowaView Staff Present at ISU Research Days

By Activity, Conference, Education, Imagery, Outreach, Remote Sensing, , , ,

This year IowaView Staff are presenting their research at a virtual university research conference. Staff built a poster using a tool called iPoster. Click on the poster below to interact with the virtual poster (available for a limited time, through March 2021).

Iowa Student Map Contest 2021: Mapping Unique Iowa Features

By Activity, Announcement, Education, Event, Iowa Student Map Contest 2021, Map, Outreach, , , , , ,

The 2021 Map Competition for Iowa students is now underway.

Students in grades 4-12 are invited, with their teachers, to participate in this year’s mapping contest sponsored by Esri, the Iowa Geographic Information Council (IGIC), and William Penn University. This year’s theme is Mapping Unique Iowa Features.

Contest Website: https://sites.google.com/site/iowamapcontest/home

Story Maps Website: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-storymaps/overview

How to participate: Use the Story Map application to tell a story about a unique feature site using a map and pictures.

There will be $100 cash prize and a certificate for the top five middle school (grades 4-8) and top high school (grades 9-12) map entries. The top entry from each state will be submitted to the national competition hosted by Esri.

Schools must submit their winners to the state for judging by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Iowa GIS professionals will judge the entries so Iowa awards may be announced, and send winning entries on to Esri for the national competition.

OhioView presents Remote Sensing on a Shoestring

By Activity, Announcement, Event, Remote Sensing, , , , , , , , , , ,

Are you interested in learning more about remote sensing but have a limited budget? This February, OhioView will be presenting , “Remote sensing on a shoestring,” and will guide you through how to begin using freely available software and data to perform remote sensing analysis.

Topics for each of the workshops (and their skill level) are as follows:

February 5, 2021, 9am – 1pm (EST):

  • Earth Science Missions Imagery using Google Earth Pro (beginner level)
  • Normalized Difference Calculations with Sentinel-2 using Multispec (intermediate level)
  • Land cover classification of Sentinel-2 images using QGIS (beginner level)

Use this link to register for the February 5 workshop: https://forms.gle/Z269biTar4vU23DU7  The last day for registration for the February 5 workshop will be January 28, 2021.

February 26, 2021, 9am – 1pm (EST):

  • Classification Using Google Earth Engine (intermediate level)
  • Ground validation using the GLOBE Observer app (beginner level)
  • Estimating Evapotranspiration with Landsat using QGIS (intermediate level).

Use this link to register for the February 26 workshop: https://forms.gle/HkRGQ3fn8S81443U6 . The last day for registration for the February 26 workshop will be February 18, 2021.

IowaView Rendezvous at Spirits in the Gardens

By Activity, Education, Event, Outreach, USGS, , , , , ,

On November 1st, IowaView staff participated the “meet-a-scientist” at the annual Reiman Gardens Spirits in the Gardens event featuring a self guided pathway with hundreds of carved pumpkins as well as scientists to meet along the way. During our shift, there were over 250 visitors of all ages. We were able to share posters featuring remote sensing and GIS, which included aerial imagery of Ames and Reiman Gardens dating from the 1930s to 2019. Participants enjoyed seeing change over time as Ames has urbanize over the last ninety years. Staff gave out goodie bags with AmericaView poster, USGS trading cards, and Earth as Art bookmarks and booklets.

ISU Mapathon Greatest hits…show the highlights reel!

By Activity, AmericaView, Geography Awareness Week, Humanitarian Mapping, Map, Outreach, , , , , , , , , , ,

Over the past few years the ISU GIS Facility has hosted a number of mapathons. Most of our mapathons have a time set aside for mapping in Iowa and then a time where we focus on international projects.

It is amazing what even a small group of mappers can do to add to the OpenStreetMap basemap in a small town in Iowa. Below are three examples of demonstrating how a mapathon event can add to the OpenStreetMap.

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