Hello Girl Scouts and troop leaders!
We at GLOBE are very excited that you have chosen to use the GLOBE Observer app to work on your Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey.
This video can be used as a plug and play (with pauses for activities, so pay attention and pause the video while you work).
Alternatively, troop leaders, service unit or council volunteers, can use this video as an example of how you might run your own program.
However you choose to use this video, enjoy your Journey as you learn to Think Like a Citizen Scientist.
Welcome to the first step in being a critical part of a growing citizen science project.
Today you will learn about what it means to Think Like a Citizen Scientist,
learn about the Land Cover Tool on the GLOBE Observer app
and practice identifying different types of Land Cover.
But first let me tell you about GLOBE and GLOBE Observer.
GLOBE is an international science and education program
that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process
and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment.
GLOBE Observer app is the data entry tool that allows citizen scientists
to enter their data and share observations.
GLOBE Observer is part of GLOBE.
Okay, speaking of the Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey,
learning about what it means to observe is the first step in thinking like a citizen scientist.
Let’s get started by practicing our observation skills.
I’m going to show you a satellite image and I’m going to ask you to make observations about it.
When we observe, we use our senses (hearing, smell, touch, sight, and taste).
Since we can’t really taste, smell, hear, or touch this satellite image,
we are going to use sight.
Some possible questions to help you with your observations could be:
What do you notice about the satellite image?
What colors do you see?
What recognizable features do you see?
When was this image taken?
What satellite collected the data?
You can write down any observations you made in your science journal or on a piece of scratch paper.
Observations are anything that you notice with your senses,
so today, you probably won’t notice any tastes, touches, or smells,
but I bet you will be able to see some cool observations
Leaders, once your Girl Scouts have finished examining their satellite images
and noting their observations,
ask them to share their observations and discuss.
Pause the video and discuss.
This satellite image has a lot of cool things going on.
On the left you can see that there are clouds covering the ocean.
And on the right you can see green as trees cover the landscape.
Even further to the right, the image looks brown.
This is where there is barren ground and little vegetation.
This satellite image is of the Oregon and Washington coastline and interior.
You can see little dots of white right along the margin
of the green and brown landscape.
Those are the Cascade Mountains.
On the center top there is a little area that is brown and gray.
That is the city of Portland, Oregon.
And there near the bottom of the image is a cloud of smoke
from a wildfire.
The smoke was from the Bootleg Fire, which was happening in July of 2021.
I bet you made some really great observations.
But what does this have to do with Thinking Like a Citizen Scientist?
Let me ask you, what do scientists do?
Pause the video and discuss what a scientist does.
I bet you had a great discussion on what it means to be a scientist.
There are lots of different types of scientists out there,
but one thing they all have in common in their research
is that scientists rely on the scientific method to learn new things.
You are going to be citizen scientists, where you use the scientific method to help gather data for NASA scientists
and other researchers including students or scouts like you.
The first part of the scientific method is to observe.
You all did a great job of observing the satellite image.
The next part of the scientific method is to create a question and make a hypothesis,
which is a fancy word for an answer to you question based on your observations.
Let’s look at this image: and make a question based on our observations.
You can come up with your own question or you can use the one that I’ll provide on the next slide.
Pause the video and discuss.
Our question could be, “What is located where there are clusters of white pixels?”
The hypothesis is your answer to that question.
The white pixels indicate that there are a lot of lights,
so I think that there are more lights in cities.
The clusters of white pixels are where there are cities.
But, how do scientists know if their hypothesis is correct?
They have to collect and analyze data.
The more data they have the better their results will be because it helps filter out some of the outliers
(the mistakes, errors, or oddball data).
Kind of like if I was measuring favorite Girl Scout cookies.
The more people I sell cookies to, the better my data.
For example, here is a pie chart showing real data from my troop sales.
This Girl Scout made a single sale to one family (who love Samoas and don't like Thin Mints).
But are Samoas the most popular cookie sold by Girl Scouts nationwide?
With this data my hypothesis should be yes!
But is it? How could I get a better data set?
I could collect more data. The pie chart on the right is the data for my entire troop’s sales.
This is a much better data set because it has 1,559 packages of cookies sold,
1,554 more boxes than my single sale.
With this much data, I could look at which ones I sold the most of
and be able to make a better conclusion to my hypothesis than if I’d only sold 1 or 2 boxes.
The more data that is collected, the better. So are Samoas the most popular according to this data?
No. Thin mints are. Your troop can do this same exercise with your troop sales.
If you added your data to this data, we’d have an even better data set.
In the night time satellite image, we were mostly right, but there are some outliers,
For example, in North Dakota, there are bright spots where there are oil fields, but not cities.
For NASA scientists, we rely on a lot of data. And this is where you can come in.
You can be Citizen Scientists.
These are data points taken by citizen scientists all over the world
with GLOBE and GLOBE Observer and you can be part of the network of citizen scientists
that are collecting and analyzing this data.
Let’s learn about GLOBE Observer’s Land Cover Tool.
[Music] GLOBE Observer presents: Land Cover Adopt a Pixel
[Music]
Land cover and land use are the foundations for critical science and social issues such as:
Climate Change
Food Production
Human Health
With the data, we can better analyze natural hazards like floods, fires, and landslides.
Photograph the land.
Classify land cover.
Compare your observations to satellite data.
Become a citizen scientist today, with GLOBE Observer.
[Music]
[Music Fades Out] GLOBE Observer. Download on the App Store or Get it On Google Play.
Next, let’s watch this video to learn about the importance of land cover data
and how your citizen science observations contribute to continuing land cover research.
~Sound of Helicopter and music in background~
Peder Nelson: My land cover career really started in 2002…
…with the biggest wildfire in Oregon’s history.
And that was the Biscuit Wildfire.
I at the time was doing botany surveys.
And looking for rare plants or rare mushrooms. And so I was spending a lot of time out on
On the forest, looking at and taking photos and doing the documentation that a scientist or a land manager does.
When that fire happened, it changed everything.
Because we all had to react to this fire that was burning up some of the places that I had literally been the day before.
And it was mapping what was there, and what was under threat.
But it was also mapping the effects of the fire. We needed to find a way to look across five-hundred thousand acres.
And the only way that we could really do that was satellite data.
If we can’t get out and actually measure every single thing, what are we missing?
And that’s where citizen scientist can actually come in and really help traditional scientists. To better understand
What is happening around them. But also fill in these gaps.
~♪Music♪~
Narrator: The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program
Is an international science and education program.
It provides students and the public with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process.
The GLOBE Observer App, is one of the opportunities allowing citizen scientists and students to take land cover
Observations around the world and submit them to a larger database.
But, what exactly is land cover?
Doctor Eric Brown de Colstoun of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explains
Eric: Land cover is really the basic form of the landscape that we have around us.
So, whether it’s forest or a desert. But it’s really one of the components of the landscape that we can study from space.
Narrator: Doctor Peder Nelson is a scientist who uses land cover imagery in his research.
Peder: I am a remote sensing scientist, who studies land cover across the globe.
I use satellite imagery to make maps of land cover. And try to quantify what covers the Earth.
Sometimes a satellite can’t see what’s happening underneath a tree canopy, or what’s happening underneath cloud cover.
And so we really need people to go out there to take these photos and do these observations, to help fill in where a satellite can’t
actually make some observations.
Narrator: Just like any digital photograph
Land cover images are made up of a series of pixels. To show what covers the Earth.
A pixel, or picture element, is the smallest unit of a digital image.
When combined with thousands of other pixels, a picture is formed.
Each pixel color shown represents a land cover type.
It’s from these pixels where ground verification, or ground-truthing, come into play.
You see, depending on what satellite is taking images
A pixel can cover roughly an area of thirty to five-hundred meters squared.
For imagery captured by Landsat, a pixel is thirty meters squared. Or about the size of a baseball diamond.
However, part of that pixel showing forest, might actually be water. Or shrubs.
By taking land cover observations, citizen scientists can help answer these questions when it comes to land cover maps.
Sooo, why are these land cover observations so important?
Why are they taken in the first place?
Eric: We also are looking at how these components are changing over time.
So, deforestation in the Amazon or across the world. How are cities expanding?
A lot of different things to study and really the view from space is the way we do it here at NASA.
We have big supercomputers that simulate the physics of the atmosphere and the land. The interaction between the Earth’s
Systems.
It’s important to have that land cover map. It sets certain parameters.
Those models can actually be used to look at current day conditions and weather.
So based on these current conditions, what might the Earth look like fifty or a hundred years from now.
There’s an element of understanding but then also being able to predict into the future, you know, what that might be like.
What these changes may mean for us.
Narrator: Each point shown here represents a real world measurement of environmental conditions.
Scientists use computer models to fill in information where measurements may not exist.
By verifying the satellite imagery and using the data for these models, scientists can predict changes in our environment more accurately.
One of these scientists using land cover maps to track urbanization as part of her work is Doctor Amita Mehta of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Amita: So, urbanization changes terrain as well as characteristics of the surface itself.
And so, impervious surfaces is what we look at when we are monitoring flooding.
When there are, say, parking lots, cement and concrete surfaces increase. So previously, if it was farmland
Or something which was not built, and if that is built now. That water previously that could go or percolate in the soil and in the ground
now cannot go in and it stays there.
Monitoring helps you to plan for it.
If you see land cover changing, even then you know that how water’s going to flow in that region might change.
If you have to send rescue out or you have to plan for relief activities, and if you know land cover, then you know
Where there might be help needed.
By using land cover maps and models that reflect changes over time, scientists can predict where flooding and other events may occur.
With a changing climate, these predictions from models and land cover maps can help scientists better understand these changes.
And help communities prepare for them.
But, perhaps a more important reason as to why take land cover observations is
You get to participate in a community of scientists, citizen scientists and students.
Eric: So, it’s a very important component that the citizen science and students of the GLOBE Program and GLOBE Observer
Can contribute to is by really giving us the information on the ground of what they’re seeing around them and in front of them.
And we hope over time as well as how maybe some of these things are changing.
Because those would be very valuable for science.
Peder: I saw the value of having information before a hazard happens.
Because once that fire went through an area, we can never recreate that data.
This is all important for us to share and put together because that’s how we understand Earth as a system.
All of these things end up affecting where we live, why we live where we do and why we make some of the choices that we do.
Narrator: To learn more about GLOBE Observer, check out the website at observer.globe.gov
And download the app to start taking your own observations today.
Now it’s your turn.
Let’s try analyzing and classifying some land cover data collected by GLOBE Observers.
Let’s play the Land Cover Classification Challenge.
We are going to use the Land Cover Type Quick Reference Guide to identify and classify different types of land cover.
You can keep watching the video and go through the Land Cover Classification Presentation
or you can do this activity as a troop, logging the different types of Land Cover that you see.
Each slide will show you a photo from a GLOBE Observer Land Cover Observation.
Then, use the "Land Cover Type Quick Reference Guide" to identify the types of land cover in the photos.
Next, write down the answers on a piece of paper.
After you've made your best guess to all 9 photos, continue watching the video to see how many you got right.
Thanks for playing! Let’s find out how well you did.
This photo is of a barren landscape. Barren means that there isn’t much vegetation. We can see bare rock, glaciers, and soil
In this photo of a road in a forest we have two different types of land cover. Urban and Trees.
The trees are deciduous broadleaf, because most of them are missing their leaves. Deciduous means that the leaves
(or needles fall off the trees in the Fall).
If you were in this forest, you could use this opportunity to use the GLOBE Observer Trees tool, and measure the tree height of one of these trees.
It is also an urban land cover because there is a road that cuts through the forest. The road is an urban land cover, while the forest is a tree land cover.
Look at all that grass! This is a grassland. And the grass is medium in length.
If it was tall the grass would have to be over 6.5 feet high. That’s taller than most people I know!
This is a picture of a forest with both trees and shrubs. The trees are primarily needle leaf evergreens and there are both short and tall shrubs.
This photo was taken from the Pacific Coast.
That is open water, since the Pacific Ocean is filled with saltwater, this is a marine open water land cover.
This is a photo from a river. This would be a freshwater open water land cover type because the river is filled with freshwater, not saltwater.
Also, there are trees in the background, this is a wetland and specifically a river wetland.
This is a really dry landscape, but there are a few shrubs scattered among the barren dirt.
These shrubs would be classified as short, since they are under 6.5 feet tall.
This photo shows a city, or an urban area. We can see that there are apartments (residential), businesses (commercial) and roads.
This photo shows all the subcategories in the urban land cover type.
This looks like an outfield of a baseball field. The grass has been mowed and cared for.
It wouldn’t look like this if people didn’t plant, water and mow this field.
Because humans grow the vegetation to look like this, it is considered cultivated.
Farms, pastures, or parks are cultivated land cover types. Since the field is covered in grass, it is specifically a cultivated grass land cover type.
Congratulations! How many did you get right? You can pause the video and discuss or you can continue on
and learn about how to use the Land Cover Tool in the GLOBE Observer app.
GLOBE Land Cover: Getting Started
Open the GLOBE Observer App and select Land Cover.
Verify the date, time and your location.
Observe a 100 meter x 100 meter area. This is about the length of a soccer field.
Report the surface conditions.
Capture Your Surroundings: Tilt your phone to capture 50 meters of land in each direction.
Submit photos now or classify the land cover.
Classify the Land Cover: Determine what type of land cover is in each photo.
Tap on the “i” icon to see a description of the land cover types.
Tap the photo to see a large version of it.
Estimate how much of each type you see in the photo.
Percentages may total over 100% especially if trees are growing over another land cover type, like grass or shrubs.
Need help with your observations? Select the question-mark on the bottom right corner.
When you’re done, send your observations to GLOBE.
Compare with Satellite Data: Select “My Map” to compare your observations to satellite data.
If your observation is different from NASA’s, tap “Report a Difference.”
Return to the same location to record changes over time and contribute to a global database of observations.
GLOBE Observer
observer.globe.gov
globe.gov
EXPLORE EARTH
If you want to get started as a GLOBE Observer, ask your troop leader to register your troop through SciStarter,
then send you the link to set up your accounts.
Once you have a troop Scistarter account, you will choose which citizen science opportunity interests you
There are a lot of different citizen science projects (including others with NASA) and others with GLOBE Observer:
Trees, Land Cover, Clouds, and Mosquito Habitat Mapper.
Then you need to download the app. Register as a GLOBE observer. Then collect your data.
So now you’ve learned to Think Like a Citizen Scientist by observing, collecting and analyzing data.
The next step is to collect and analyze your own data by using the app.
Then, consider how you might use your data to take action.
What kind of “take action” projects could you think of doing?
You could adopt a place and take observations on a schedule. While you are there, take care of it. Pick up litter or do some gardening.
You could create a program to teach other Girl Scouts about a place that is important to you.
You could also start a hiking group and take observations as part of your walk.
You can also document changes with scheduled observations.
If you know of a place that is undergoing changes
like a new building being built, a development or a place where regrowth is happening after a landslide or forest fire,
but of course only after it is safe to do so,
monitor that change with scheduled observations or take seasonal observations and compare the changes that take place.
And finally you could create a team of your troop, council, or service unit and take observations together.
What I love about Girl Scouts is that you all leave the world a better place. I for one am really excited that you are leading the future for us.
We would also love for you to share your Take Action projects inspired by GLOBE Observer.