Category Archives: Education

Back to School Teaching Tools: Using Phenocam Images in the Classroom

By Education

The new school year has begun. As we trade in our flip flops and towels for shoes, socks, and shirts, the world around us is also signalling the change of seasons. The grass and trees will soon be getting their autumn colors as they fade from their vigorous summer greens and yellows to reds, oranges, and browns. This is a great time to introduce and discuss concepts of seasonal change, phenology,

The Harvard Forest website has over two dozen great resources to get students (5th grade – high school) thinking about seasonal change. Below are several exercises that especially stood out:

  1. Comparing historical writing to current phenocam data for observe changes in species leaf off timing
  2. Comparing the percentage of color change of individual trees in a phenocam image to the percentage of change in a canopy-wide image
  3. Generating a temperature vs. percent leafs fallen graph

IowaView Phenocams are online!

By Article, Education, Imagery, Outreach, , ,
phenocam_picture

IowaView Phenocam – Grand Tetons, WY

A phenocam is a digital camera that takes pictures at set intervals as a way to track the change in vegetation and climatic conditions throughout the year at a given location. The phenocam provides fixed scene, time-lapse images over the course of a year, which can then be analyzed for a variety of scientific uses, including seasonal changes such as spring “green-up” or fall “leaf-off.”

WYphenocam Crew

Team members installing the IowaView Phenocam in Wyoming

IowaView has partnered with Dr. Diane Debinski and the Debinski Lab (Iowa State University – Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology) to install two phenocams at their research areas in Iowa – Grand River Grassland and Wyoming – Grand Teton. The IowaView phenocams are part of a larger phenocam network across the USA and world.

Phenocam_Sites

Locations of Phenocams Sites

grandteton

Picture taken by IowaView Phenocam – Grand Tetons in Wyoming

grandrivergrass_2015_08_25_120006

Picture taken by IowaView Phenocam – Grand River Grasslands in Iowa

In the coming weeks, we will provides links for educational opportunities that provide instructions on using the phenocam data in the classroom.

Thanks to the Debinski Lab for their work getting our phenocams running!  Great work!

GRG Phenocam Team

Phenocam Installation Crew in Iowa

Teachers, start your mapping! Free online GIS in the classroom from Esri and ConnectEd

By Education, , , , , , , ,

Title: Teachers, start your mapping! Free online GIS in the classroom from Esri and ConnectEd
Date: August 19th, 2014
Time: 10am to 11am
Description: Online GIS is a powerful, relatively easy way to get kids thinking spatially and involved in applied, inquiry-based projects.  Come to learn more about this wonderful opportunity and bring your ideas and questions about how the use of online GIS can be used to help engage you kids.

For more information and to pre-register: https://learn.extension.org/events/1678

Educational Opportunity for 6-12 grade teachers

By Education, , ,

The UNI Geography program has a teacher training workshop in Oskaloosa July 21-22, 2014. The training uses ArcGIS Online and is aimed at social studies and STEM teachers teaching grades 6-12. The 2-day workshop is free, sponsored by National Geographic, and the graduate credit hour cost is greatly reduced. They have three excellent teachers lined up to give the workshop.

Below is a link with more information:

https://www.uni.edu/continuinged/distance/courses/summer-2014/1160611607-geog-41335133-69