Category Archives: NASA

Celebrate with us today! 30 years of GIS at ISU!!!

By Activity, Announcement, Event, Geography Awareness Week, IGIC, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, NASA, Outreach, , , , , , , , , ,

Today is GIS Day! We are celebrating in the North atrium of the College of Design. Today is an especially exciting celebration as we are also celebrating the 30th anniversary of the ISU GIS Facility on campus and 50 years of the US Landsat, earth observing satellite mission. Please join us in the College of Design from 11:30am to 2:00 pm. We will have several activities, puzzles, refreshments, educational giveaways, and door prizes.

For additional information and directions, visit: https://www.design.iastate.edu/event-listings/2022/11/gis-day-open-house-event/.

How are you celebrating the Landsat’s Golden Jubilee?

By #Time Lapse Tuesday, Activity, Announcement, Education, Environmental Change, Event, Imagery, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, NASA, Observation, Outreach, Remote Sensing, Resource, Story Map, USGS, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
This image is from the Camp Landsat website: https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/camp-landsat/

To celebrate the Landsat Golden Jubilee, consider taking a virtual visit to Camp Landsat! This summer Camp Landsat is celebrating this exciting anniversary with 5 weeks of programming, celebrating the 5 decades of Landsat’s continuous mission. This week the theme is People and Places.

Enjoy and explore many activities from Camp Landsat including:

Graphic from GLOBE Program Website: https://observer.globe.gov/do-globe-observer/challenges/land-cover-challenge-2022

Stay Cool and Keep Observing!

Celebrating 50 years of Landsat Earth Observation!

By Announcement, Education, Imagery, Landsat, Landsat Golden Jubilee, NASA, Observation, Outreach, Story Map, USGS, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, July 23, 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of the USGS/NASA Landsat earth observing satellite mission. With the launch in 1972, Landsat has continued its earth observation mission and become the longest continuous earth observing satellite.

July 1972 – Landsat 1 Launch: This image is from the NASA website: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/images/history/July1972.html

Enjoy this video recalling the launch and explaining the beginning of the earth observing satellite mission, Landsat 9 – Part 1: Getting off The Ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlRf17Egexo.

Keep Observing!

Happy Earth Day 2022: Enjoy NASA’s Pathways to New Discoveries

By Activity, Earth Day, Education, Landsat, NASA, Outreach, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This year NASA’s Earth Day poster is features a series of QR codes which provide an array of information on a number of their missions, programs, and activities. We have provided a key below explaining each of the numbered QR codes along with the link to each code (click on the name to follow the link.)

  1. Artemis
  2. Landsat 9
  3. Climate Time Machine
  4. Climate Quizzes
  5. Images of Change
  6. Eyes on Earth
  7. Benefits from Space
  8. Rising Tides
  9. Snack Time with NASA
  10. Benefits on Earth
  11. GLOBE Observer
  12. NASA Earth Day
  13. Earth from Afar
  14. Earth Science
  15. Live views from Space
  16. NASA Aeronautics
  17. 2022 Earth Day Poster

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!

Are you looking forward to the Landsat 9 Launch?

By AmericaView, Announcement, Education, Landsat, NASA, Observation, Resource, USGS, , , , , , , ,
Rocket Launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Lompoc, California Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ian Dudley
Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Ian Dudley

Landsat 9 is scheduled to be launched on September 16, 2021. This will mark almost 50 years of earth observation by US satellites. In preparation for this historic launch, we will be sharing several interactive documents about the history of the Landsat mission as well as the information about the Landsat 9 mission.

Today we would like to share with you, A History of the Landsat Program, developed by Ellie McGinty at UtahView. It’s an interactive Google Earth Tour, which documents major moments in earth observation history through a combination of maps, text, and curated images starting with the founding of the United States Geological Survey in 1879 through the birth of NASA in 1958 to the conception of Landsat in 1970 and all the way to the present day launching of Landsat 9.

Remembering the 2020 Midwest Derecho

By Education, Event, Imagery, Landsat, NASA, Observation, Remote Sensing, , , , , , ,

A year ago today a derecho, a series of thunderstorms with hurricane-like winds and heavy rains, struck Iowa with very little warning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put together a multi-media story map to tell the tale of this eventful day. Hundreds of thousands of trees were lost or damaged. Homes and buildings were destroyed. Many people lost power for days or even weeks.

Have you visited the NASA’s Earth Observatory? It is a NASA website that helps make satellite imagery relevant to the general public and it is a great place to find images for presentations or use in the classroom. In August 2020, the Earth Observatory featured a comparison of satellite images from July 2020 and August 2020 to show the extent of the derecho damage on Iowa cropland.

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.