Script: Hello, remote sensing scientists! We’re glad you are here. We’ve left the hygrometers out all night in various locations on Ingenia, and we’re ready to read the results. As mentioned previously, Ingenia’s environment includes many different climates and types of weather. If you could live in any type of climate or weather for the rest of your life where would you live and why? (wait for student response). Well, thanks to your hard work, we’ll be able to give the people of Ingenia more information about the different climates. Let’s read about hygrometers and find out!
Have students check the results of their hygrometers created in the previous activity and record the reading.
Discuss:
5 min Script: Thanks for helping us sense the humidity in our air. Just like people have multiple senses, there are many different types of sensors. Next, we’ll learn about a technology called LiDAR that light sensors that send pulses of laser light to map hard to reach or hard to see environments. Let’s watch some videos to learn more.
2:30 min Watch: Geospatial World: What is LiDAR? (Watch until 2:30 for basic information) (www.geospatialworld.net)
5 min Discuss:
2:30 min Watch: TED Ed: How do self-driving cars “see”?(Watch until 2:23 for basic information) (https://ed.ted.com/)
5 min Discuss:
TIP: If students have completed the “Think like a Scientist” unit, discuss how LiDAR, Echolocation, and Sonar are similar and different.
Students will work in pairs to create and sense model sea floor.
* This activity was adapted and modified from TeachEngineering.org.
5 min Script: We’ve been learning about how scientists and engineers design sensors to provide information about different things. Sensors are used in lots of different ways for many different tasks. Today, you will explore how we learn about the unknown or hard to see or map places like a dense rainforest or deep down to the ocean floor. It would take a lot of time, equipment and people to travel into a dense rainforest or into the depths of the ocean. To learn about the terrain, or shape, of these types of places scientists instead use a sensor technology called LiDAR. LiDAR uses pulses of laser light beams to bounce off solid objects and return to a sensor. The sensor can then use the time it takes for the light to return to calculate the distance. This information can then be used to create a topographical, or a 3D, map that shows the ocean floor. Today, you won’t be using LiDAR lasers, but instead these skewers or chopsticks.
5 min Script and Demonstration: With a partner, you’ll create a model terrain inside the shoebox using 8 of your blocks. Then, you’ll trade your box with another pair. Using the grid of holes and the skewer or wooden rod, you’ll try and sense the topography, or 3D shape of the mystery terrain and recreate it using your own remaining blocks. Then, each pair will reveal their ocean floor designs and you can determine if you sensed the environment accurately. You can continue exploring with this model of LiDAR by creating new ocean floors and trading with other pairs of students until the time is done.
40 min Pair students up and dismiss them to begin creating and sensing the model ocean floors.
10 min Lead a group discussion. Ask:
5 min Watch: NASA - Intro to LiDAR (www.nasa.gov/goddard)
5 min Discuss:
TIP: If you have completed the “Think Like a Scientist” unit:
Have students consider the 5 senses humans have and what life is like for people who lack a sense (i.e., someone who is deaf, blind, etc.). Have students research about these conditions and the ways people use technology to help them understand the world around them with the limited senses they have. Students can consider how the technology used by people who are deaf, blind, etc. are similar and different from technology like LiDAR and sonar.
