The concrete example of the devastating 2007 forest fires in Greece serves to introduce the pupils to the causes and the effects of humans interfering in geo-ecological cycles. The pupils take on the role of an expert who is asked on behalf of the European Commission to make statements on the development of the vegetation in Greece after the forest fires by making use of remote sensing methods. At first, the pupils get to know the different spectral bands of a satellite and calculate a vegetation index (NDVI) which can supply information on plant vitality. As a last task, they are asked to combine single NDVI images in order to create and analyse a time series.
The online version of the module is currently only available in German.
Download the complete teaching material (18 MB).
Recommended Prior Knowledge: Knowledge in the fields of photosynthesis, ecology (biology) and optics (physics)
Roland Goetzke
Henryk Hodam
Kerstin Voß
Topics
Goals
The pupils ought to be able to classify the dynamics of ecosystems in connection to the example of the 2007 forest fires in Greece.
The electromagnetic spectrum has to be described and used for comparing the reflection characteristics of plants.
The wave-length range relevant for photosynthesis will be allocated
The pupils ought to explain the relevance of vegetation indices and apply vegetation indices for change detection.