Description: The Sea and Space project uses the Web to bring Remote Sensing, Navigation, and related subjects into schools throughout Europe
Keywords: Sea and Space, ESA, ESO, EAAE, GMD, WebThing, Education, Classroom, Schools, Oceans, Satellites

Sea and Space

# Welcome to Sea and Space

Venezia (Venice) - city in the sea. The work of participants will eventually be featured here. | About Sea & Space National Contact Addresses National Brochures Participants [Joining] [Bulletin Board] Remote Sensing [lessons & exercises] Navigation [lessons & exercises] [fieldwork] Water, Water, Everywhere! Oceans of Water CONTEST Glossary FAQs & Links A Brief Introduction to Sea & Space Sea & Space International Steering Committee Press Release about Sea & Space NOTICES Webmaster

## Sea and Space

The Sea and Space project brings the frontiers of technology into schools. Using the Internet, we will bring interactive contents - lessons, exercises, fieldwork - into the classroom, and turn your web browser into an image processing workstation!

### Remote Sensing

Remote Sensing is the use of satellite data (and sometimes others) to study the Earth. It is now an important part of geography, and all the Earth sciences, and an indespensible tool to many disciplines from archaeology to planning.

Satellite images of coastal regions can accurately map phenomena such as temperature, roughness, and marine life concentration. Around an estuary, sediment from a river can be charted far out to sea. Tidal areas can be mapped. Pollution incidents can be clearly visible. Around bays and headlands, strong local variations often perilous to mariners can be identified.

### Navigation

In the past, the star charts provided amazingly accurate navigation to mariners. However, there was always the problem of the weather: what use are stars to the sailor under a thick cloud?

In modern times, a range of high-tech electronic systems have been developed, starting with radar - Britain's "secret weapon" in world war II - and sonar for underwater work. Early electronic systems such as DECCA/LORAN for highly accurate coastal navigation were developed for harbour navigation and offshore industries.

Most recently, the high-tech star charts - the American GPS and Russian GLONASS systems use highly complex but synchronised satellite constellations. Like the old star charts, they work by triangulation. The major advantage - they don't stop working in bad weather!

As a fieldwork exercise, selected participants will build corner reflectors, that will be clearly visible from space.

### Water, Water Everywhere!

Water is ubiquitous on Earth. For the ancients, it was one of the four primal elements of the Universe. Astronomers in our time have detected traces of water even in deep space.

The water cycle on Earth is fundamental to life, and its study hydrology is a science in itself. Applications of satellite data are endless, from meteorology - the familiar weather pictures - to local detection of surface water; from the global ocean currents of the Gulf Stream and El Nino to the local currents that make a safe harbour or deadly rocks; from ship and pollution to marine life and plankton.

Did you know that global warming may mean a local ice age for much of Europe? Our climate is kept warm by the Gulf Stream, but just a little melting of the Greenland ice cap could leave us - from northern France, through the British Isles and the low countries to Norway - more like Alaska?

### Remote Working

You will learn how to use satellite data to study the Earth, and especially the 70% of it that is covered by water. But that is only half the story. You are using the world's greatest computer - the global Internet - not merely to 'browse' and read, but as a complete system! We hope you will find new and exciting ways to use this medium in your work, both to prepare and to publish it. This remote working is even newer than remote sensing. In the next century, both will be fundamental parts of life, like the telephone is today.

Selected works will be featured on the Sea and Space server. We are looking for contents - studies that use the satellite data to show something interesting or useful. But we are also interested in how you reached your results. You are encouraged to explore new ways of using the Internet in your work.

Last Updated: Thu Apr 16 12:56:48 GMT 1998

Programmed by
Advanced Systems & Software
for UNIX and Internet