Native American high school students introduced to Earth Observation & Landsat images

 

As part of the 2026 Native American Science Institute (NASI), 35 Native American high school students from Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah were introduced to Earth Observation and Landsat images. These students and their teachers assembled the large floor puzzle of Wyoming’s Landsat image mosaic.

More details about this year’s NASI program and full list of participants can be found at: https://www.uwyo.edu/news/2026/06/uw-hosts-35-native-american-high-school-students-for-ninth-native-american-summer-institute.html

This activity was jointly hosted by WyomingView and UW ASPRS Student Chapter (2026-27 officers: Anais Canto Samudio (President), Tyler Gallager (Vice President), Willam Colin Maloy (Secretary), and Korrin Sutherburg (Treasurer) - (photo below).

Wyomining middle & high school students learned the value of aerial & satellite images for monitoring Earth surface changes

More than 20 Wyoming Middle & high school students learned how data collected by Earth Observation (EO) satellites are used for tracking/monitoring farms, rangelands, forests, wildfires, and floods.

Students from Carey Junior High, CY Middle, Laramie Middle, McCormick Junior High, Cheyenne Central High, Moutain View Middle, Cheyenne South High, Dean Morgan Middle, and Johnson Junior High schools learned about geostationary and polar orbiting satellites and how the data they collect are used for tracking hurricanes, floods, wildfires, crop growth, and forest health.

Students viewing an animation of geostationary satellite in orbit
(Photo: Jeremy Cain, UW Extension)

As a part of this event, students visited one of NASA's websites and wrote their name using Landsat images (samples names generated with Landsat images shown below).

Interested in making an image with your name? Visit NASA's Your Name in Landsat page.

More info on Landsat: Visit USGS' Landsat page.

Satellite images track global vegetation responses to annual changes to amount of sunlight

 8th graders at Laramie Middle School, as part of MS-ESS-1 content, learned how earth’s tilt, its spin and orbit around the sun causes variations in the amount of sunlight throughout the year and how various lifeforms have adapted to these changes (leaf color changes, migration, hibernation, etc.).

In this outreach activity, students learned how the information collected by sensors mounted on stationary towers, planes, and satellites are used for tracking those changes. Satellite images acquired throughout the year showed the seasonal changes to the amount of green up in the northern and southern hemispheres (figure below). Students gathered the amount of sunlight received in Cheyenne, Wyoming and compared it to another city in the Southern Hemisphere.

Courtesy: NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

(Public domain)

Jared Krysl and Joshua Peterson, eighth grade science teachers commented “[This activity] helped to solidify the concepts brought up by our standard as it related to the amount of sunlight in a day and the formation of seasons due to the Earth’s tilt.”

This educational outreach activity was conducted on Feb 26 and 27, at Laramie Middle School, WY.

Satellite images illustrate human influence on the environment – Story of Shrinking Aral Sea

Satellite images showed fifth graders at Spring Creek Elementary School how human actions have converted one of the largest lakes in Asia to the newest desert. Diverting waters from two rivers for agriculture reduced the inflows, increased the salinity of remaining water, caused wildlife to disappear, and created the newest desert in Central Asia.

A pair of satellite images from 1964 (Corona) and 2018 (Terra) show the effect of diverting water from the two rivers flowing into Aral Sea. Satellite images courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory

A 1964 photo from the Corona satellite, several Landsat images from 1970s to 2000s, and annual MODIS images from 2000 showed how the Aral Sea, once the 4th largest inland water body, gradually shrunk exposing most of the sand. Some of these images also showed how dust storms transported large amounts of this sand to various regions across Asia and beyond.

Students were able to see how human actions can make a large lake disappear. Commenting on the value of these images for illustrating human influence on our environment, Mrs. Hayden, their teacher said, “when we discussed what the students learned/remembered from [the] presentation this week, they had lots of takeaways about how the 4 different Earth systems interact and how humans have influenced the environment.” The content included as part of this activity was “closely aligned with the standard we have been focused on”, said Hayden.

This event was conducted on April 28 at Spring Creek Elementary School, Laramie, WY.

Landsat images can be obtained for no-cost from US Geological Survey. More details about Landsat can be obtained from: https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions.

Earth Observation Day Event Shows Monitoring Natural Disasters with Satellite Images

Seventh graders in Laramie Middle School (LMS) learned the value of satellite images for monitoring natural disasters. 

Students are learning about natural disasters and how they are impacting humans and their environment. Images acquired before- and after- the floods, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes, etc. from Landsat and other Earth observation satellites showed the extent of damages caused by disasters.

One of the teachers commented "students were able to really take in what damage can be done from the several disasters you shared with them and how, depending on the event, the satellite imaging can provide different forms of information needed."

One hundred and fifty eight students and 2 teachers participated in 6 sessions of this Earth Observation Day activity conducted on April 24, 2023.

Introducing Wyoming Geography with Landsat Image Mosaic

WyomingView showcased large Landsat floor puzzle in Wyoming State Museum's monthly outreach activity in Cheyenne, Wyo. 

Assembling the puzzle, elementary school aged kids and their parents saw the diverse landscapes of the state. Further details in UW press release: https://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2023/04/large-landsat-puzzle-created-by-uw-researcher-introduces-wyomings-geography-to-children.html 

WyomingView's First Virtual Earth Observation Day Outreach @ Spring Creek Elem. School

Landsat images acquired in2019 show
algal blooms in Keyhole Res. Wyo. These
blooms form under abundant sunlight,
temperature and nutrients. Landsat images
are available from US Geological Survey.

Third graders in the Spring Creek Elementary School (Laramie, WY) learned how satellite images are used for tracking algal blooms in waterbodies throughout the US.

Students in 3rd grade GATE science class are learning about water and sources of water pollution. Currently they are finding solutions to address environmental issues such as oil spills, acidic conditions, and harmful algal blooms. 

First, students learned the sources of chemicals that would eventually become the nutrients for the algae once they enter waterbodies. Algal blooms appear when there is an abundance of sunlight and higher temperatures. 

Next, they saw how algal blooms appear in images captured by Landsat and other satellites. Aerial and satellite images provided by USGS, NASA, and several state environmental agencies were used for this outreach event. These satellite images showed algal blooms in small and large waterbodies throughout the US. 

Describing the value of this outreach activity, Ms. Natalie Davis, their teacher commented “provided students with real life data and imaging that brought all the work we did in class.  Students were able to see real examples of the impact water pollution has, and tie that back to what they had been testing/studying in class the weeks prior”. 

This outreach event was conducted virtually on Sept 23, 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Landsat 7 captures active fires in SE Wyoming (Sep 19, 2020)

Last Saturday (Sep 19), Landsat 7 satellite passed over the Mullen Fire in Medicine Bow National Forest (Wyo.) and captured the active fires. Images captured in spectral regions that are invisible to humans shows active fires.

The stripes in the Landsat 7 image correspond to missing data due to scan line corrector malfunction developed in 2003. Despite this limitation, images continued to provide valuable information about forests, croplands, water bodies and many more.  Landsat 9, the next satellite in the series, is scheduled to launch in 2021. For more information about Landsat, please visit https://landsat.usgs.gov.

Mullen Fire started on Sep 17, and as of Monday (Sep 21) has burned more than 13,835 acres.  Please visit the InciWeb site for more information about this fire.

AmericaView highlights WyomingView's Women in STEM workshops

WyomingView held, not one, but THREE workshops in Laramie, Wyoming as part of the #Women in STEM conference! Among other activities, participants had the opportunity to assess how green and blue paper absorbed and reflected electromagnetic energy - and how that energy was associated with human vision.

These workshops were funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Land Imaging competitive grant to AmericaView #WomenInSTEM #RemoteSensing

Associating the color of an object with its light reflection (Science Kitchen - Jan 2019)

Twenty five middle school (6th-8th grade) students from Wyoming learned how the color of an object can be associated with the amount of light reflected by it in the different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.  As part of the hands-on activity organized by Science Kitchen, they measured the amount of light reflected by blue and green color materials using an ALTA II Spectrometer (below).

Higher reflection for each object recorded in the wavelength that corresponded to their color, i.e., blue material reflected most in the blue region (470 nm) of the spectrum.  Following the hands-on activity, WyomingView PI demonstrated how the same principle of light reflection can be applied to satellite and aerial images for monitoring water clarity of lakes.

Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper image acquired in 2011 (above) shows the spread of algal bloom in Lake Erie.  Light reflection in the lake covered by floating algae (shades of green) varies from the rest (dark blue), which can be used for monitoring water quality.

Additional details about this image and the algal bloom problem captured in it can be found at NASA's Earth Observatory website (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/76127/toxic-algae-bloom-in-lake-erie).

Integrating Landsat images in sixth grade curricula – WyomingView article published in PE&RS

WyomingView has been working with sixth grade teachers in Laramie area schools to incorporate Landsat images for illustrating natural (flooding, wildfires) and human influences (deforestation, urbanization) on the environment and the resultant changes in the landscape. Utility of Landsat image-pairs generated by the USGS, NASA and WyomingView along with lessons learned from these activities are described in a highlight article published in the Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing [81(6):425-431 – DOI: 10.14358/PERS.81.6.425].

Link to the article [subscription to PE&RS is not required]: http://www.asprs.org/a/publications/pers/2015journals/PERS_June_2015/HTML/