KaAMS Coral Reef Lesson Plan Index

Image coral reefs of Pearl and Hermes -- Hawaiian Islands

Welcome to the lesson plan index page for the Mission: Studying coral reefs.

This mission puts the students in the role of Airborne Remote Sensing scientists concerned with studying the coral reefs at Kailua Bay on the Island of Oahu. Click here to read a letter introducing the problems being investigated by this mission.

This mission consists of 14 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.

Home
Welcome
Using KaAMS
Lesson Plans
Resources
Community
Links
FAQ

Problem Scenario: Should Restrictions be Applied to the Coral Reefs in Kailua Bay?

Summary: This lesson provides an overall context for the KaAMS mission. First, it provides the students with an authentic and motivating problem to investigate. Second, it provides an explanation of the final project-describing how they will report their findings. Third, it prompts students to begin to think about the process of exploring the overall problem by having them take different roles in order to understand coral reefs from their different perspectives. Fourth, it prompts students to identify what they know, what they need to know, and what they should do to solve the KaAMS mission by having them explore answers to questions that prompt them to think about why, who, when, what, where, and how. Finally, it provides students with a framework for being scientists who perform different roles as airborne mission scientists. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What is a Coral Reef?

Summary: The main topic of investigation for the KaAMS mission is protection of coral reefs. To address the overall problem, students will need to have a basic understanding of coral reefs. During this lesson, students participate in the following hands-on activities about coral reefs: (Jump to complete lesson plan)

How are Coral Reefs Important to Us?

Summary: students are grouped into teams and participate in role-playing to investigate the coral reefs’ values based on different perspectives. They are asked to take the perspective of individuals responsible for coastal development, ocean related tourism, pharmaceutical research, commercial fishing, biodiversity, geological record, and Hawaiians Polynesian culture. Based on their understanding about the importance of coral reefs, students can develop the background necessary to determine how coral reefs are important to them. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Reefs in Danger?

Summary: students need to understand whether coral reefs are in danger and what the threats to the coral reefs are. The goal of this lesson is for students to develop an understanding of threats to the coral reefs while creating a flowchart that includes causes and consequence of threats. The understanding of threats to the coral reefs developed in this lesson, will provide a base to investigate the overall problem of evaluating the state of coral reefs in Kailua Bay. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Why is the Government Interested in this Problem and What is its Role?

Summary: students to develop an understanding of why the government is interested in preserving the coral reefs. To do this, students role play members of different government organizations that comprise the Coral Reef Task Force. Based on their new understanding of government efforts to the coral reef problem, students will investigate what the government must do to preserve the coral reefs of Kailua Bay. elchichon -- earthobservatory.nasa.gov_Study_Volcano (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Who 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)

What is Remote Sensing?

Summary: Students participate in the sensory map activity where they experience remote sensing, relate the sensory map activity to the remote sensing fundamentals, and apply their understanding of remote sensing to the Kailua Bay coral reef 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)

Aeronautics: What do I 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)

What do Remote Sensors Sense?

Summary: Students learn that there are wavelengths of EM radiation we can and cannot detect with our eyes. Students 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 coral reefs. The understanding of EM radiation developed in this lesson will help students when they analyze the reflected visible and near-infrared images in the "Analyzing data" lesson to solve the overall problem of whether or not restrictions should be applied to the coral reefs in Kailua Bay. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

Developing a Mission Flight Plan -- When and Where do I Fly?

Summary: 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)

How do I Plan a Remote Sensing Mission?

Summary: Students plan a remote sensing mission to evaluate the state of the Kailua Bay coral reefs. Based on their understanding of the concepts of swaths, spatial resolution, temporal resolution, students will make the decisions necessary to create a plan. The activity in this lesson will work as supporting knowledge for when they will collect and analyze actual remote sensing data.(Jump to complete lesson plan)

Collecting Data - Kite Aerial Photography

Summary: are given an opportunity to participate in the live data collection process. 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 and the flight flown by the Pacific Disaster Center. Students work in groups to plan the process of collecting data that they will analyze in order to evaluate the state of coral reefs in the Kailua Bay.(Jump to complete lesson plan)

Analyzing Data

Summary: This lesson prompts students to analyze and interpret actual remotes sensing images based on the understanding of remote sensing. Students will participate in activities to analyze the state of coral reefs in Kailua Bay by examining various images including DMSV images, classification maps, and pie charts. Finally they will analyze the images collected at the different times to determine whether there has been loss of living coral in the past years. (Jump to complete lesson plan)

What Conclusions Can I Draw and How do I Present My Results?

Summary: Students are divided into groups to take different roles such as coastal developer, commercial fisherman, tourist, coral reef expert, and native Hawaiian representatives. Each group prepares a report or presentation based on their role which summarizes their recommendations, predictions, inferences, or resolution to the Kailua Bay coral reef problem. The activity ends with student's presentations to the class and sharing of feedback among teams.(Jump to complete lesson plan)

Site updated October 13, 2002

Teacher assessment

Nasa Logos