The Exciting Science Group, a volunteer group of scientists from National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, recently organised a three-day workshop on 'Assessing Environmental Change using Satellite Data.'
The aim was to introduce 12-14 year olds to the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software used for geo-spatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics and maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization.
The workshop sessions were conducted by Dr. Rahul Chopra, Chair of Centre for Earth and Environment and Associate Professor at FLAME University, Pune.
Dr. Chopra introduced the participants to the tools and techniques to assess environmental changes using remotely sensed data from satellite and learn the techniques to highlight issues such as urban expansion, changes in forest cover, melting of glaciers, natural and man-made disasters in India and the world.
Participants also learnt about the sources of free satellite data such as data from the LANDSAT series of satellites, data disseminated by NASA and USGS. Students also learnt to create posters that demonstrated large scale changes in our environment. They also received a certificate of participation from ESG.