Category: Investigations

Chapter 2 { Digital Earth Watch Contents } I. The Power of Digital Images With the inventions of the computer and the Internet, many of us use digital cameras or cameras in smart phones as tools to record memories by capturing images of objects. But digital images are now more than just a way to […]

Chapter 1 { Digital Earth Watch Contents } Of our five senses, sight provides near-instantaneous information over a large range of distances and space. So it is no coincidence that people use a plethora of images to convey a rich variety of data: photographs, maps, drawings, paintings, movies, text documents, signs, etc. With the inventions […]

The Digital Earth Watch (DEW) project grew from a NASA grant project titled Measuring Vegetation Health. Its goal was to teach about how monitoring the health of vegetation can be done at various scales: from individual plants to large scale ecosystems. See Overview. Contents Chapters Investigations Challenges 1. Digital Image Basics 1.1 How Is Light […]

Chapter 8 { Population Growth Contents } It has been almost two hundred years since Thomas Malthus began the discussion of human population growth.  The discussion continues even today in a world six times more populated than it was in Malthus’ day. Many people are concerned about the problem, but the majority of people are […]

Chapter 7 { Population Growth Contents } CAIRO — Years ago, when the water buffalo gave plenty of milk and the pigeons and chickens were paraded nightly to the dinner table, Om Mahmoud was healthy and happy with the annual ritual of giving birth to a new baby: another pair of hands in the lush […]

{ Population Growth Contents } { All GSS Books } Investigation by David Masterman In this Investigation, you calculate the amount of land required to produce the food eaten by an individual for one year and compare the amount of land required to produce animal versus plant products. Background Humans require energy and their energy […]

Chapter 5 { Population Growth Contents } More humans means more demands of nature. The demand for wood, wood products, and additional space for agriculture has resulted in worldwide loss of forests. What people all over the world are beginning to recognize is that the world’s resources are finite. There is just so much land, […]

Chapter 4 { Population Growth Contents } All living things have evolved with the capacity to reproduce at very high rates. What would happen if this were not so? What if a maple tree produced only one seed in a year? What are the chances that a single seed would find a hospitable patch of […]

{ Population Growth Contents } { All GSS Books } All of us have genes in pairs. We received one gene of each pair from each of our parents. For example, whether or not you have lots of room for earrings is determined by the pair of genes you received from your parents. In the […]

Chapter 3 { Population Growth Contents } Unfortunately, neither the Spanish nor the English sailors were terribly interested in taking a census of the number of goats or dogs on the island during any of their visits, and they did not do a mark-recapture that we know of. We can only guess at the number […]