Collaborations
Measuring Vegetation Health
Investigating Your Local Environment
Healthy plants are prime indicators of a healthy environment overall. By measuring the health of plants, we find the environmental conditions that impact the health of all organisms, including humans. Plants are like "green canaries"; if they die, other organisms will soon suffer also.
Through NASA funding, seven collaborating institutions are developing, refining, and distributing a set of hands-on activities for students and the general public to use flexibly. With technologies that detect and manipulate light, these activities offer this audience an opportunity to learn how to monitor vegetation health in their own environment.
The goals of Measuring Vegetation Health are to help teach and apply the scientific principles of light and use affordable technologies to measure the environmental health of your surroundings; to provide access to remote sensing data to create detailed stories of your local environment; and to share these stories to identify regional and national environmental trends. In addition, the project aims to help you use these ideas, technologies, information, and resources in creative ways that you find fascinating, and share your ideas and results with others.
| Format | Collaboration |
| Grades | 6 – Adult |
| Author | MVH Partners |
| Source/Publisher | n/a |
| Location | n/a |
| Website | Measuring Vegetation Health |
Measuring Vegetation Health
+ View Detailed Standard Connections
Primary Connections:
National Science Education Standards (1996)
(National)
- Science as Inquiry > Understanding about scientific inquiry (Grade: 5 – 8)
MA Science and Technology/Engineering Framework (2006)
(Massachusetts)
- Technology/Engineering > Communication Technologies (Grade: 9 – 10)
- Earth and Space Science > Matter and Energy in the Earth System (Grade: 9 – 10)
- Earth and Space Science > Mapping the Earth (Grade: 6 – 8)
Secondary Connections:
National Science Education Standards (1996)
(National)
- Life Science > Matter, energy, and organization in living systems (Grade: 9 – 12)
- Life Science > Populations and ecosystems (Grade: 5 – 8)
MA Science and Technology/Engineering Framework (2006)
(Massachusetts)
- Life Science (Biology) > Energy and Living Things (Grade: 6 – 8)
- Life Science (Biology) > Living Things and Their Environment (Grade: 6 – 8)
– View Concise Standard Connections
Primary Connections:
National Science Education Standards (1996)
(National)
- Science as Inquiry > Understanding about scientific inquiry (Grade: 5 – 8)
Scientific investigations sometimes result in new ideas and phenomena for study, generate new methods or procedures for an investigation, or develop new technologies to improve the collection of data. All of these results can lead to new investigations.
MA Science and Technology/Engineering Framework (2006)
(Massachusetts)
- Technology/Engineering > 6.1 Communication Technologies (Grade: 9 – 10)
Identify and explain the applications of light in communications, e.g., reflection, refraction, additive, and subtractive color theory. - Earth and Space Science > 1.14 Matter and Energy in the Earth System (Grade: 9 – 10)
Explain how scientists study the earth system through the use of a combination of ground-based observations, satellite observations, and computer models of the earth system, and why it is necessary to use all of these tools together. - Earth and Space Science > 01 Mapping the Earth (Grade: 6 – 8)
Recognize, interpret, and be able to create models of the earth's common physical features in various mapping representations, including contour maps.
Secondary Connections:
National Science Education Standards (1996)
(National)
- Life Science > Matter, energy, and organization in living systems (Grade: 9 – 12)
As matter and energy flows through different levels of organization of living systems--cells, organs, organisms, communities--and between living systems and the physical environment, chemical elements are recombined in different ways. Each recombination results in storage and dissipation of energy into the environment as heat. Matter and energy are conserved in each change. - Life Science > Populations and ecosystems (Grade: 5 – 8)
The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
MA Science and Technology/Engineering Framework (2006)
(Massachusetts)
- Life Science (Biology) > 16 Energy and Living Things (Grade: 6 – 8)
Recognize that producers (plants that contain chlorophyll) use the energy from sunlight to make sugars from carbon dioxide and water through a process called photosynthesis. This food can be used immediately, stored for later use, or used by other organisms. - Life Science (Biology) > 13 Living Things and Their Environment (Grade: 6 – 8)
Give examples of ways in which organisms interact and have different functions within an ecosystem that enable the ecosystem to survive.
Measuring Vegetation Health
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Measuring Vegetation Health
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