Back in April, Mr. Avery had traveled out to Arizona as part of a trip for LearnZillion While there, he had the opportunity to experience the Education Innovation Summit. He was able to meet people who run many of the websites and apps that we use such as Edmodo and Wikispaces. He even had the opportunity to meet some people who work for EarthKam.
EarthKam is a project that is run by NASA. With this program, students are able to take a look at the location of the International Space Station as it orbits around Earth. Students can choose a time and location and the ISS will take pictures of Earth that then are shared with the classroom. It was an amazing way for us to take a look at the geography of the Earth as we work on our World’s Fair project and also to talk about topics of space such as gravity!
Unfortunately, because the International Space Station looks down at Earth from its orbit, the timing of the images needs to be perfect because on a cloudy day, all you’ll see are pictures of clouds. However, with the right timing, you get to see some amazing pictures of the Earth from above! Students had pictures taken of the countries they are researching. We also took some pictures looking down at some of our blogging buddies such as Mrs. Yollis, Mrs. Morris and Ms. Jordan, B4, and A Room with a View. You can see the images below!
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Scotland
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Portugal
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Michigan
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California
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Egypt
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Nile Delta
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Massachusetts
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Spain
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Sudan
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Australia
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New Zealand
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Israel
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Ireland
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Iraq
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Iran
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Africa
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Chile
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Costa Rica
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England
If this is something you’re interested in, they’ll be running another education mission in July. We recommend you check it out!
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Dear Mr. Avery,
This is really cool, but you can’t really see anything on mine.
From,
Jacob B.
Dear Mr. Avery,
I would want to travel to Mars. I would like to travel to mars because I think it would be really interesting, actually traveling to any planet would be interesting!
-Rebecca A.
Dear Rebecca,
I think it would be fun to travel to any planet especially Mars. You might die if you went to any planet other than are’s because they don’t have any oxygen. It would still be cool though.
Sincerely,
Marshall
Dear Mr.Avery,
The Nile River looks really big from Space. I wonder how big it is standing right near it. If I could travel to any planet it would be Mars. I really would want to see all the rocks on Mars.
From,
Kaylee
Dear Avery Bunch,
These pictures were amazing. I can’t wait to share them with the students tomorrow. We are out of school today celebrating Memorial Day. We have 10 more days of school before summer break. Our 3-5th graders get to take their End of Grade Test this week and k-2 are doing reading/math assessments but we have almost finished so this will be a great addition to our studies. We have been studying Australia this year but we also do a lot of blogging/skyping with a Room with a View in England. We just are reading a book about The Boy who biked the World and Tom has just gotten in Egypt, seen the Nile and gone into Sudan. We are tracking his progress on our maps. The author is a real live explorer/adventurer. Alstair Humphreys wrote this book. You can read some of the things Tom is seeing on our blog site brendatodd.edublogs.org
Did each student pick their own country to research? Mrs. Todd
Dear Avery Bunch,
Seeing these photos of places from space is incredible! I was especially struck by the enormity of the Nile River Delta. If it is that large from space, I can’t imagine what it must look like sitting on the side of the river and gazing across.
I think if the Space Station takes any photos of Seattle, their chances of seeing anything except clouds will be in July!
I have another comment about your Genius Hour time. I was really impressed with the creativity of your projects. Are any of you continuing with your ideas at home?
Happy Reading! I hope you read a book or 5 this coming summer!
That Seattle Librarian,
Mrs. Hembree