Using NASA Earth-Observing Satellites to Help Improve Agriculture and Water Usage

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

In this resource, students learn about freshwater resources, how NASA uses satellites to measure precipitation, and how that data can be used in agricultural practices. Students use data from the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement satellite to explore precipitation patterns in two parts of the world and then make recommendations for how to reduce water use in agriculture and in their own lives.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Relevant topic to engage students on the topic of climate change. Possible idea for an extension activity is to look at agriculture locally where the educator is based and locate NASA precipitation data if available and/or collect it on your own. Then students can determine water needs for crops in specific regions. Possible idea for extension is to discuss to what extent irrigation is used in local farming. This may help students understand that the issues raised in this lesson are not unique to the regions the lesson mentions. If students struggle with reading comprehension, educators can have them become experts/complete graphic organizers in strategic pairs.
This resource focuses on applied science, asking students to use data to solve problems associated with wheat farming and managing water resources. Activities in the lesson clearly integrate tools, resources, and data from scientists (NASA satellite imagery from the Global Precipitation Measurement mission). Information is provided from credible sources including university professors. Comments from expert scientist: This is a complete lesson plan including introduction to a topic, a jigsaw activity to explore it, data analysis, and consideration of other applications. Teachers could break it down to share a subset of the activities with their class if short on time. For a fifth-grade level, the provided slides, videos, and other resources do a good job of explaining how the data are collected, analyzed, and used. The extension activity that guides students through accessing precipitation data for their own location is powerful if teachers are able to support this kind of tech-heavy approach. It could be useful and interesting for older students as well.
This activity is well designed and includes various methods of instruction. This lesson is a group project in which teams work together to solve a problem, using scientific data about climate and water resources. This lesson is packed with information, which could be presented at various age levels, leaving plenty of room for extending it to make it longer/shorter. The lesson begins with engaging material and follows a natural sequence which makes it easy to absorb/understand. This lesson doesn't require students to have previous background/experience in the topic of agriculture.
The resource is easy to use and requires limited technology including a projection device for the videos and Powerpoint. Requires access to multiple computers, but could be modified if students have less access to technology. Minimal costs for basic supplies for the hands-on parts of the lesson. The link to the "Argumentation Strategies" is broken but otherwise, the annotation is very complete and thorough.