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The Montana Association of Geographic Information Professionals (MAGIP) looks forward to your participation at this year’s 2026 Big Sky GeoCon!


Thursday April 16, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm MDT
Many of the major themes within Environmental Education rely upon remote sensing and orbital data collection. This unit was developed to introduce students in grades 11-12 to the science behind the maps and graphics they see in class. It ranges from a review of the physics of the electromagnetic spectrum to data manipulation, ground-truthing, and ArcGIS workflows.
The unit begins with a physical modeling of active vs. passive sensing and spectral signatures, teaching students to recognize that every land cover—from healthy forest to impervious urban surfaces—possesses a unique "spectral fingerprint." Students use resources from NASA and the USGS to develop an understanding of how global change can be detected remotely.
As the unit progresses, students access primary data via USGS EarthExplorer, perform change-detection analysis of their local area using Landsat time-series data, and calculate the Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) to model ecological disturbance. An infrared sensor and an air quality sensor are used to collect data around the school campus. This field data is crowdsourced via ArcGIS Survey123 and visualized alongside satellite imagery in ArcGIS Living Atlas in an attempt to demonstrate "ground-truthing." The unit culminates in an ArcGIS workflow that helps students build a comprehensive ArcGIS StoryMap portfolio detailing their learning progress throughout the unit.
Presenters
avatar for Sarah Tabor

Sarah Tabor

Belgrade High School
Sarah has taught science courses for the Belgrade Schools since 2007. A professional development opportunity in 2018 introduced her to the world of GIS and she has been seeking ways to incorporate it into her classroom ever since. She currently teaches Biology, Advanced Placement... Read More →
Thursday April 16, 2026 1:40pm - 2:10pm MDT
Alpine Room

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