Linking climate change education through the integration of a kite-borne remote sensing system

Abstract

A majority of secondary science teachers are found to include the topic of climate change in their courses. However, teachers informally and sporadically discuss climate change and students rarely understand the underlying scientfc concepts. The project team developed an innovatve pedagogical approach, in which teachers and students learn climate change concepts by analyzing Natonal Aeronautcs and Space Administraton (NASA) global data collected through satellites and by imitatng the NASA data collecton process through NASA Airborne Earth Research Observaton Kites And Tethered Systems (AEROKATS), a kite-borne remote sensing system. Besides AEROKATS, other major components of this system include a web-collecton of NASA and remote sensing data and related educatonal resources, project-based learning for teacher professional development, teacher and student feld trips, iOS devices, smart feld data collector apps, portable weather statons, probeware, and a virtual teacher collaboratory supported with a GIS-enabled mapping portal. Three sets of research instruments, the NASA Long-Term Experience-Educator End of Event Survey, the Teacher End of Project Survey, and the pre-and-post-Investgatng Climate Change and Remote Sensing (ICCARS) project student exams, are adapted to study the pedagogical impacts of the NASA AEROKATS remote sensing system. These fndings confrm that climate change educaton is more efectve when both teachers and students actvely partcipate in authentc scientfc inquiry by collectng and analyzing remote sensing data, developing hypotheses, designing experiments, sharing fndings, and discussing results.