EOS Earth Data

Teacher Resources

EOS-WEBSTER has partnered with several other organizations to develop Earth science data products for use in middle and high school to college level courses. We are also creating data products (such as MPEG movies) from our existing data collections that can be used in a classroom environment.

Highlighting some of our educational products and services:

Satellite Images

The University of New Hampshire has created a set of true-color browse images from the NASA MODIS 8-day 500m surface reflectance tiles. These browse images cover the continental USA every 8 days since February 2000. The browse images show land-surface changes including snow cover and the greenness of vegetation over time. Images have been processed by a standard method so that color is consistent across all images. For detailed information about the data, please see the MODIS Aggregate Products Data Guide.

To view and download the browse images from EOS-Earthdata:
1) At the main menu use the pulldown menu under the Data tab to go to the Order Data Page. From this page, click on “MODIS Aggregate Products” under the heading for Satellite Data.
2) Browse the Holding Table to see thumbnail images. To view and download, click on a browse image; this loads the image in a new browser window. Now you can save the image from the browser window to your hard drive.
3) Choose different time periods to see a smaller list of products.

Animated Movies

Would you like to give your students a visual illustration of how climate has changed in the United States in the last century and how it may change in the future?

We now offer time series animations of climatological variables for the years 1895 through 2100. These MPEG movies were created from the model output results of two of the most frequently cited climate simulation models developed by the Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research.

Information about the models: For detailed information about the models, please see the VEMAP Transient Dynamics Data Guide. Future climate was modeled using an increasing atmospheric CO₂ of 1% per year. Net Primary Production was modeled two ways: by keeping the CO₂ level constant at the 1895 level of 294.8 ppm (constant CO₂) and by increasing CO₂ 1% every year (increasing CO₂). In these scenarios, atmospheric CO₂ reaches 711 ppm in 2100, which is very similar to the IPCC AR4 SRES A1B scenario. For more information about the IPCC, please see our Climate Visualizations page.

Each movie is approximately 9.0 megabytes in size and may take a long time to load, please be patient.

Variable	Canadian Climate Model	Hadley Model
min. temperature	canadian min temp.mpeg	hadley min temp.mpeg
max. temperature	canadian max temp.mpeg	hadley max temp.mpeg
precipitation	canadian precip.mpeg	hadley precip.mpeg
solar radiation	canadian sol rad.mpeg	hadley sol rad.mpeg
relative humidity	canadian rel humid.mpeg	hadley rel humid.mpeg

Net Primary Production:

Model	Canadian Climate Model		Hadley Model
Biome-BGC	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
Century	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
Lund-Potsdam-Jena	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
MC1	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg
TEM	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg	constCO₂.mpeg	incrCO₂.mpeg

You can download a text file of the CO₂ data here.

What about viewing global landuse change over the past 300 years? These movies are decadal snapshots from the period 1700 to 2000 developed from the Global Landuse Model (GLM), which has input from several model sources, as detailed in the GLM Data Guide. Some areas have moved from forested to agriculture to urban, and others have moved from forested to harvested trees and then regrown a forest (secondary landuse) in the past 300 years. All movies are global at one degree resolution (*). They can be downloaded using the right-hand mouse click on the movie link, or run directy in your browser by left-hand click. Try a smaller movie first if your system is older.

Landuse Type and Units	300 Year Animation	Aproximate size
fraction of primary land	primary land	14 MB
fraction of secondary land	secondary land	16 MB
secondary land mean age (yrs)	mean age (yrs)	12 MB
fraction of land in crops	crop land	18 MB
fraction of land in pasture	pasture land	11 MB
fraction of land in pasture + crops	agricultural land	24 MB
fraction of forested land (primary + secondary)	total forested land	11 MB
fraction of virgin (primary) forest land	primary forest	15 MB
fraction of secondary forested land	secondary forest	21 MB
fraction of harvested trees	tree harvest	9 MB

(*) a 1 degree by 1 degree pixel in latitude-longitude measure is of variable area. One of the datasets you can get from this GLM collection is pixel area. By multiplying this area by the fraction value from the actual data, you would be able to estimate the land area.

JPEG Images

These are static jpeg images (thumbnail and full size images) of the model output results noted above.

Climate Variables:

Variable	Canadian Climate Model	Hadley Model
min. temperature	canadian min temp	hadley min temp
max. temperature	canadian max temp	hadley max temp
precipitation	canadian precip	hadley precip
solar radiation	canadian sol rad	hadley sol rad
relative humidity	canadian rel humid	hadley rel humid

Net Primary Production:

Model	Canadian Climate Model		Hadley Model
Biome-BGC	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
Century	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
Lund-Potsdam-Jena	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
MC1	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂
TEM	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂	constant CO₂	increasing CO₂

EOS-WEBSTER is a founding partner in the Earth Exploration Toolbook. The Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) is a collection of case studies or chapters in which the user obtains data and uses specific analytical tools to learn more about issues or concepts in Earth science. Screen shots are provided to assist those who may be less familiar with the software or other analytical tool that is used in the chapter. Each chapter also includes a detailed list of what is needed (typically software) to complete the chapter and any associated costs. The chapter also identifies which National Science Education Inquiry and Content Standards are addressed in the case study and concludes with suggestions for other applications of the data and areas for further exploration.

Each chapter in the EET is external reviewed by a panel of educators and is also field tested before it's released publicly. The link below connects you directly to the chapter that uses EOS-WEBSTER data and includes step-by-step instructions for getting the data from EOS-WEBSTER and using Excel to analyze the data:

Exploring Regional Differences in Climate Change
Access data from EOS-WEBSTER and produce graphs in a spreadsheet application comparing climate change among states in the U.S through the year 2100. Analyze the graph to interpret regional trends in climate change.

Explore Sea Ice

EOS-WEBSTER is the power behind the SEAICEBOX, an online tool for viewing and measuring changes in sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. SEAICEBOX shows the latest daily sea ice satellite images from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and monthly concentration of sea ice since 1979.

Go to SEAICEBOX

The images in SEAICEBOX may be used to extend activities described in the Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET) Chapter, Whither Artcic Sea Ice?

EOS-WEBSTER has also partnered with the Forest Watch Program here at UNH to provide teachers and students with an easily accessible collection of Landsat data. These Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 5 data have been subsetted by city or town and several hundred multispectral, panchromatic, and thermal images are now available.

You can view thumbnail images of the cities in this collection by selecting "Educational Image Subsets" from our Order Data page.

Check out our Landsat Clic n Pic for other Landsat images in your area!

Image Analysis and Visualization Software:

There are a number of free software programs for image processing and visualization of image data. Commonly used applications are MultiSpec, ImageJ and Analyzing Digital Images, available as part of the Digital Earth Watch (DEW) software package for Global Systems Science at Lawrence Hall of Science.

Additional Data Resources for Teachers:

	The National Science Digital Library
	The Digital Library for Earth Science Education