Category Archives: Earth Day 2017

Earth Week 2017: Story Maps

By Earth Day 2017, Imagery, Outreach, , , ,

Another way to connect with our world this Earth Week is to experience an ESRI Story Map.  Story maps use maps, map animations, photographs, sounds, and video to tell compelling stories on all sorts of topics.  The lastest maps on the Story Map website are beautiful and interactive applications for storytelling.  

This month’s featured Story Map is called Embattled Borderlands.  It begins by asking the question, “Will the border wall strike a fatal blow to one of the most imperiled wild regions in North America?”  It tells the story of the US-Mexico border, taking participants to various locations along the border. The Story Map explains the unique ecosystems and creatures located along the border and how creating an intensified artificial barrier in this region could potentially impact these areas. There are also a series of vignettes about how human intervention has already had a negative impact on the land.  This Story Map is filled with brilliant photography.

To experience this Story Map for yourself visit: https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2017/embattled-borderlands/index.html

 

 

Earth Week 2017: Adopt the Planet

By Article, Earth Day 2017, Education, Outreach, , , ,

Happy Earth Week! This year NASA has created unique opportunity just in time for Earth Day for interested participants to “Adopt the Planet.”  There are 64,000 locations available from adoption.    

Credit: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-celebrates-earth-day-by-letting-us-all-adopttheplanet

When you visit the website you can fill in your name and then receive a certificate with your adopted patch of Earth.  The adoption certificate gives you specific coordinates of your location on our globe as well as satellite data layers relevant to your piece of Earth.  You can use WorldView, NASA’s web-based satellite viewing application, to explore your adopted point over time and with different layers.   

I received a point on the coast of Antarctica.  It was cool to explore a part of our planet that I don’t normally think about on a daily basis. With the WorldView application I was able to see how it changes over the seasons from solid ice to open ocean. WorldView even has the ability to animate these observations.

This outreach event allows us the appreciate our planet from space and helps us learn about some of the space instruments that are continuously monitoring and circling our planet.

Credit: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-celebrates-earth-day-by-letting-us-all-adopttheplanet