The COVID-19 pandemic offered an unprecedented opportunity to look at changes in the Earth system in response to reduced human activity. Your challenge is to develop tools to better understand changes in the interconnected Earth system as seen through the EO Dashboard.
As a 5 th grader and an avid animal lover , I am very interested in the effects of human activity on our environment. I feel that we should protect our ecosystem especially our oceans better . Being in Boston , I am very interested in the effects on local turtle population.While I hate the Covid pandemic - it has showed us how our ecosystem could be with human activities slowing down.So when I saw the EO- hackathon , I decided it would be great to learn about the effects on water quality . Previously , I would not have been able to analyse data like this easily . However the EO- Hackathon dashboard put all of this data at my finger tips.The effect observed were jawdropping.
I used the EO dashboard as a tool to provide comparative images -side by side so that the effects are clearly evident.
Why is it important : Covid 19 provided an unprecedented opportunity to see what would happen if human activity slowed down. It would have been impossible to do this in the past.Now if we put measures in place when we start back up , we can make some positive impact.
I created comparative images of Chlorophyll A from start of pandemic to present day . The red areas indicated higher Chrorophyll A which reflects poor water quality. As we approached April 2021 -the red areas were considerably reduced.The effects were jawdropping to say the least. I could hear loud gasps among family members whenever I shared the images.
I could use these comparative images to create awareness and to discuss these topics in schools. I would like to share it with local conservation organizations, scouts activities to come up with more solutions.Frankly these activities should be included in class activities.
I am an avid animal lover . I am very interested in the effects of human activity on our environment. I feel that we should protect our ecosystem especially our oceans better . Being in Boston , I am very interested in the effects on local turtle population. The oceans are very important to balance our ecosystem and also have several diverse and beautiful species of ocean creatures which I want to pass on to the next several generations to enjoy.It would be very sad to lose them.While I hate the Covid pandemic - it has showed us how our ecosystem could be with human activities slowing down.So when I saw the EO- hackathon , I decided it would be great to learn about the effects on water quality . Previously , I would not have been able to analyze data like this easily . However the EO- Hackathon dashboard put all of this data at my finger tips.I put the images from EO-dashboard and put it onto an app called Flipaclip.
The effects I observed were jawdropping -even though some of these changes could be seasonal etc. - the effect of human activity is unmistakably visible . I can use this to educate and create awareness among my friends,family , school and community.
I took snapshots of the satellite pictures on EO- dashboard obtained by NASA . I was interested in the effects of human activity on
water quality . So I observed the data on what happened to the ocean when human activity slowed down . I took snapshots from the dash board from beginning of pandemic to a more recent image in April 2021(5/8/2020,9/9/2020,12/16/2020,3/3/2021,5/26/2021)
Then I arranged them in sequential order on Flipaclip. So when I played the video , I could see how the Chlorophyll A , seen as red areas decreased dramatically from the start of the pandemic to current data . Chorophyll A represents water quality. Red areas indicate poor water quality.The effects I observed were jawdropping -even though some of these changes could be seasonal etc. - the effect of human activity is unmistakably visible . I can use this to educate and create awareness among my friends,family , school and community.I used data from New York as this is closest data to Boston.
Creating snapshots of the satellite images from different dates and then presenting them in a series will help kids and even the public see the effects that human activity is having on the planet. This will make the complex data more easy to understand for kids who visit the dashboard.
Snapshots from NASA as seen on EO dashboard.
#waterquality #chlorophyllA
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.