Armagh Planetarium - Geography Conference

EARTH OBSERVATION AND EDUSPACE WORKSHOPS POPULAR AT CONFERENCE

On Thursday 16th June, 2005 the annual Inter Board Geography Conference took place at the Antrim Board Centre in Northern Ireland. The conference, which hosted over 200 Geography teaching professionals representing nearly every school in the province, was co-sponsored by the Armagh Planetarium and Action Renewables. The theme for this year was Earth Observation and Remote sensing and titled 'Place and Space'

The organisers were delighted to welcome, as our keynote speaker, Dr Mark Doherty from the ESA ESRIN facility and Earth Observation Directorate. Dr Doherty's speech was titled 'Innovative approaches to learning and teaching in Geography.' During his presentation he outlined the potential for using the latest data from ESA in the classroom and highlighted the ESA schools Earth Observation website Eduspace as an excellent vehicle to promote Geography and Information Technology learning in Post-primary students.

(LEFT TO RIGHT)
CONFERENCE ORGANISERS
DR MARK DOHERTY (ESA), MRS BRIGID MURRAY (BELB), MRS VIVIEN QUINN (NEELB) AND MR ROBERT HILL (ARMAGH PLANETARIUM).

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The keynote speech was followed by breakout workshops. Two of the most popular fully booked workshops were the Eduspace sessions organised and presented by Robert Hill of Armagh Planetarium. The objective of these workshops was to highlight the many ways that satellite images may be used to enhance learning and Information technology skills in Geography curriculum-related lessons and coursework. During these sessions, attendees gained insight on how to access and navigate the website and download the free LEOworks image processing software developed for the site. The teachers were given Landsat data of Northern Ireland and Belfast. By the end of the one hour sessions they had learnt how to manipulate the data and create true and false colour images, enhance images and set up measuring tools relating to the study of human and physical geography.

(LEFT)
TEACHERS ATTENDING THE KEYNOTE ADDRESS GIVEN BY DR MARK DOHERTY.

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The organisers and sponsors would like to thank ESA, BNSC, Dr Doherty and his staff for the fabulous free resources and promotional material relating to Earth Observation and BNSC/ESA that were made available to teachers attending the conference.

There can be no doubt that the event greatly raised awareness of Earth Observation and remote sensing in teaching and the important role that this can play in a changing curriculum.