KaAMS Remote Sensing & Aeronautics Lesson Plan Index

Welcome to the lesson plan index page for the Mission: Studying active lava flows.

This mission puts the students in the role of Airborne Remote Sensing scientists concerned with identifying where the active lava flows are on the Kilauea volcano. Click here to read a letter introducing the problems being investigated by this mission.

This mission consists of 12 lesson plans along two pathways. See Using KaAMS for suggestions on how to use these lesson plans in your classroom.

Move your cursor over the diagram to the left to get a short description, or scroll down the page to get a slightly longer description of each lesson plan. Click on the circles in the diagram to the left or on the titles below to go to the lesson plan overview. This overview contains a thorough description of each lesson plan and provides an option to print or view a detailed version of the lesson plan.

You can also print the accompanying student guide for either the aeronautics or remote sensing pathway by clicking on the student guide images to the bottom left.

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What is Airborne Remote Sensing?

Summary: This lesson plan provides an overall context for KaAMS. First, it provides the students with an authentic and motivating problem to investigate. Second, it provides an explanation of the final project expectations for this series of lesson plans. Third, it prompts students to begin the process of exploring the overall problem by having them develop an understanding of key concepts in airborne remote sensing. Finally, it provides students with a framework for being scientists who "do" science rather than just learning about science. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What Are Airborne Mission Scientists and What Do They Do?

Summary: Students develop an understanding of airborne mission scientists while completing a NASA Airborne Sciences Flight Request Form for a given aeronautics remote sensing mission.

Students will role play as different types of airborne mission scientists and will collaborate to develop a mission plan. Each student gathers information on his/her role and shares it with teammates to complete the flight request form. This activity will establish the students work as airborne mission scientists throughout the remainder of KaAMS. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Volcanology

Summary: Students participate in the different hands-on activities on volcanoes: gelatin volcano activity, lava layering, lava flows. Based on the understanding of what volcanoes are, how they work, what features they have, and what lava flows are, students can determine what data they will need to collect to locate active lava flows on Kilauea. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Airborne remote sensing mission: What do we need to know?

Summary: This lesson plan prompts students to develop and categorize important questions that need to be answered when selecting the best aircraft for a mission. While developing these questions students learn about the four forces of flight, other factors that may affect the success of the mission, the remote sensing instrument requirements, and flight planning. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Developing the Mission Flight Plan

Summary: elchichon -- earthobservatory.nasa.gov_Study_Volcano Based on their new understanding of NASA research aircraft, students will identify answers to their questions from previous lessons and use the answers to select the best aircraft for the airborne remote sensing mission. They will create a flight plan and then compare their flight plan to one that was used to fly the actual mission over Kilauea volcano. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What is Remote Sensing?

Summary: This lesson prompts students to develop background knowledge of remote sensing. During this lesson, students participate in the sensory map activity where they experience remote sensing, relate the sensory map activity to the remote sensing fundamentals, and apply the understanding of remote sensing to the Kilauea volcano mission. Based on new understanding of remote sensing, students will investigate how remote sensing works and how it can be used for the mission in the next lessons. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What do Remote Sensors Sense?

Summary: During this lesson, students will work in groups to investigate all of the types of EM radiation. They will identify visible and infrared radiation as useful forms of EM radiation to study lava flows. The understanding of EM radiation developed in this lesson, will help students when they analyze the reflected visible and mid-infrared images in the "Analyzing data" lesson to solve the overall problem of locating active lava flows on Kilauea. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What's Hot? What's Not?

Summary: Airborne remote sensing typically involves sensing reflected or emitted electromagnetic (EM) radiation. In addressing the overall problem, students will need to have a basic understanding of the EM Spectrum and various forms of EM radiation, especially infrared and visible. In the "Analyzing data" lesson, students will be analyzing reflected visible and mid-infrared images as well as emitted mid-infrared images of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Planning a Remote Sensing Mission

Summary: The goal of this lesson is for students to plan a remote sensing mission to locate active lava flows over Kilauea. Based on their understanding of the concepts of swaths, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution, students will make the decisions necessary to create a plan for remote sensing mission. The activity in this lesson will work as the knowledge base to collect and analyze actual remote sensing data. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Collecting Data - Kite Aerial Photography

Summary: The goal of this lesson is for students to develop an understanding of remote sensing data collection while taking part in the kite aerial photography activity -- exercises on how data can be collected using airborne remote sensing aircraft, making an kite aerial photography rig, planning a remote sensing mission, and practicing flying the kite, ending with students flying their kite, developing film, and analyzing data images. Students are asked to identify the relationship between kite aerial photography and an actual KaAMS remote sensing mission. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Analyzing Data

Summary: This lesson prompts students to analyze and interpret actual remote sensing images. Based on the understanding of remote sensing, particularly visible and infrared EM radiation, students will participate in various activities to analyze both visible and infrared remote sensing images. Finally, they will analyze and interpret two actual NASA images about Kilauea volcano to locate active lava flows. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Go Public! Presenting Your Results

Summary: This lesson plan provides students with the time to wrap up their investigation results for the KaAMS mission. Each student in the team assumes a role for the presentation and make final preparations to go public with their findings. Students finalize their presentation by using assessment rubrics. The activity ends with students presentations to the class and sharing of feedback among teams. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Site updated July 17, 2003

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