Posts Tagged ‘ASB Unplugged’
Geospatial Teaching & Learning 2018
Geospatial Teaching & Learning website home page featuring a Landsat image of one of my favorites areas-the Sundarban. Processed by the author using raw NASA tiles in an ARCGIS environment. Click on the image to access the website and PDFs of presentation folders.
In February, the American School of Bombay held its regional technology conference and workshop ASB Unplugged. The three days of presentations, interactive sessions and discussions gave me a chance to observe and check in on a school well known for into innovative use of technology in the classroom. I participated in the event and was also presented my workshop entitled: Geospatial Teaching & Learning: Opportunities, Applications and Ideas for International Educators. The workshop offered an opportunity to review recent developments in the fields of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Remote Sensing (RS) with a special emphasis on potential applications for international school teachers. Geospatial fields continue to experience rapid changes as technology develops, data become cheaper and more assessable and software is easier to use. That is good news for educators interesting in incorporating geospatial applications in their classrooms.
There were several themes that were updated or new in this workshop:
- Story Telling With Maps: One of the most useful aspects of the workshop focuses on how interactive stories based on maps and imagery are a great way to highlight the cases studies that are central to the teaching of DP Geography. These can be viewed but can also be created by students and teachers as a means of developing knowledge about case studies that are not well publicized. ESRI’s Storymaps and Google’s Tour Builder are two excellent web based options.
- OpenStreetMap offers opportunities for students and teachers to get involved in mapping their own neighborhoods in a wiki-based global mapping project. Users can then access this spatial data and a vast treasure trove of vector data that has been contributed by users all over the world, as a part of a local-based research project.
- New Data Sources: I highlighted some of the emerging sources for spatial data. On the workshops companion site I have a long list of data options and surely there are numerous other sites that I have missed. These are global in outlook but there is a focus on South Asian geography issues. I shared the exciting emergency of Planet, a US-based company that has a constellation of 150+ micro satellites that are imaging the earth and providing daily data on almost all areas of the earth. I first read about the Planet Dove program in the March 2018 issue of National Geographic. The data that I downloaded during the 14-day trial period is impressive with four bands and 3m spatial resolution. I am using the data for projects that we have to map Colombo’s wetlands. You can acquire premium commercial Digital Globe imagery at 30-70cm cm spatial resolution but it is expensive and I have not yet been able to get educational discounts through our local provider. I am working on getting an evaluation sample but for the moment this will be out of reach for most school geography programs. You can browse recent Digital Globe imagery here and of course they provide much of the imagery that you see when you zoom in on Google Earth. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel 2 satellites (through the Copernicus program) provides an excellent public service of earthy imagery that compliments what USGS and NASA have been providing. I find the best way to access Sentinel data is through the USGS’s EarthExplorer
- Field Data Gathering With Mobile Apps: The development of mobile data gathering platforms has been a significant boon for geography and science teachers looking to collect survey data and then to enhance it with locational information. The December post highlighted how we are using Survey 123 here at OSC.
- Mapping With Drones: Most international schools have drones as part of their maker spaces or technology departments. OSC has two that are beginning to be used, mainly for providing cool aerial perspectives of the campus and special events. I am working on using our drone to map the campus and other key study areas (wetlands, forest areas etc.). At the recently concluded GIS Users Conference I was impressed with a real-time demonstration by a Ministry of Defense R&D team to map a small area. I am working with the OSC tech team to get Drone Deploy (to pre-establish the flight path and order of images taken) and Drone2Map to create the orthomosaic or 3D model of the area.
PAST GIS BLOG POSTS
- GIS Developments at OSC in 2017 December 2017
- GIS Developments at OSC in 2015 January 2015.
- GIS Developments at OSC in 2014 November 2014
- Using Remote Sensing Imagery for Teaching & Learning in the IB August 2013
- GIS Developments at OSC in 2012 Development 2012
- GIS Developments at OSC in 2011 January 2012
- The Home & the World: GIS Developments at OSC in 2010 November 2010
- Using GIS in the OSC Geography Curriculum March 2010
Mumbai Revisited: An Appreciation for Innovation, Creativity & Resilience
A view of greater Mumbai (Bombay) using an image gathered by the NASA and USGS Landsat 8 satellite on Sunday February 23rd, 2014. Gray areas are built up urban parts of the megalopolis. There are significant areas of “green space” in Mumbai’s hinterlands as revealed by the image. These areas, such as Borovali National Park and several mangrove-laced estuaries show up as red and deep red in this false-color image. The satellite is picking up 11 different multi-spectral layers of data-most of which are not visible to the human eye. The 5,4,3 band combination emphasizes vegetation by assigning the infrared band to the color red while leaving green and blue with their normal bands. Other notable features include the Bandra Sea Link, Chhatrapati Shivaji airport, Elephanta Island and numerous ships in the ocean. Click on image to see enlarged A3 version at 150 DP
Back at ASB, after the morning visit to Elephanta, I enjoyed three invigoration days of thought- provoking demonstrations, workshops, lectures, interactions and talks at the ASB Unplugged. The workshops were crowded with 400 or so participants from across the globe and we were joined by the ASB staff, students and staff. The three days were split between student demonstrations, classroom visits and then “hands-on” learning institutes. The first day was capped with a Tedx talk.
There were many personal outcomes that I got out of the conference: I relished learning about strategies for effectively integrating technology in my classroom, interacting with students about their personal application of technology in the DP and CAS programs and sitting in on several excellent interactive lectures by learned experts. It was difficult trying to choose from the myriad workshops but my choices of Larry Rosen’s Brain-Based Learning workshop and Suzie Boss’ Project-Based learning were just right for my own needs. It was good being part of a whole school team approach and the six of us OSC participants regrouped frequently to share learning and outcomes from various workshops. Our family friend Alok Parashar is ASB’s head of administration and we reminiscing about our years together on MUWCI’s distant hilltop. Interestingly, there were no geo-spatial workshops on offer and it appears to me that this is a key deficiency in the program that will perhaps offer an opportunity to address at the next conference. Thinking about this, I started the download of a Landsat compressed file of Mumbai (taken just five days earlier) from Earth Explorer on the first night. It has taken several hours of processing and has helped me rediscover this neck of India that I know well from a decade ago. The image above is the outcome of that process. I have also started working with several other cloud free images from the Pune, Nashik and Ratnagiri areas.
ASB is an impressive learning community and they are blessed with outstanding resources. Like anyone in Mumbai and other urban areas in India they face a challenge in the day-to-day reminder of extreme income disparities in society-something there are few quick fixes for. Perhaps what is most interesting to me is their singular focus on their mission and purpose. The focus on innovation and creativity at all levels of the school is something that many of us could learn from. The space and time given for students and teachers to apply learning in practical ways was energizing. ASB’s Superintendent, Craig Johnson, passionately articulated this in his welcome and concluding speeches. These were positive ideas to bring back with us to Colombo. What they didn’t have in Mumbai was the greenery, fresh air, island hospitality, spicy sambol and quiet neighborhoods that are a blessing to the OSC community and it was with happiness that I returned to my family in the eastern suburbs of Sri Lanka’s capital city!
Scenes from a taxi window: the Bandra Sea Link, Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) growing on a Colaba buildings, and a Fiat on the newly opened Eastern Expressway.
REFERENCES
Future Forwards Exploring Frontiers in Education at the American School of Bombay. Mumbai: ASB, 2013. Web Link.
Riebeek, Holli. “Why is that Forest Red and that Cloud Blue? How to Interpret a False-Color Satellite Image.” NASA Earth Observatory. 4 March 2014. Web. 5 March 2014.
