Snapshots of Spring: Earth Day Photo Contest Challenges Middle School Students to Take Pictures of Their Local Environment
By Dan Stillman, posted on April 15th, 2008 in Articles, Education
Our planet is constantly changing. Look closely and you’ll see changes on the land, in the water and in the air. Of all the seasons, changes are especially noticeable during spring, from blooming flowers to migrating birds to thunderstorms and tornadoes.
U.S. students in grades 5-8 are participating in a unique national effort to capture our changing world by taking a photograph, anytime from Tuesday April 22 (Earth Day) through Tuesday April 29, of something that is changing in their local environment. The photo could be of a change occurring in their backyard, outside their school, in a local park, or off in the distance toward the horizon. The contest is conducted annually by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Arlington, Va.
Photograph submissions must be accompanied by a written explanation of 400 words or less that answers the following questions:
- What is the change taking place in the photograph?
- What may be causing the change?
- Was the change expected?
- How might the change impact surrounding areas, including people?
- How might the picture look different in the future?
Entries will be judged by IGES staff based on relevance to topic (depiction of change in the environment), uniqueness and overall appearance of the photo, and thoroughness of the written explanation.
The top three winners will receive a digital camera, digital photo frame, and digital photo keychain, respectively. The top 10 winners will receive their photograph in a special commemorative frame. The top 50 photographs and accompanying descriptions will be published on the IGES website.
Entries must be received by email or postmarked by May 9, 2008. For submission instructions, entry form, and suggestions for using this activity in the classroom, visit www.strategies.org/EarthDayPhoto.
2 Prior Responses to “Snapshots of Spring: Earth Day Photo Contest Challenges Middle School Students to Take Pictures of Their Local Environment”
NASA Daily Image
Remnant of a Supernova
Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions. In its more than twelve years of science operations, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied many of these supernova remnants sprinkled across the galaxy. The latest example of this important investigation is Chandra's new image of the supernova remnant known as G350.1-0.3. This stellar debris field is located some 14,700 light years from the Earth toward the center of the Milky Way. Evidence from Chandra and from ESA's XMM-Newton telescope suggest that a compact object within G350.1+0.3 may be the dense core of the star that exploded. The position of this likely neutron star, seen by the arrow pointing to "neutron star" in the inset image, is well away from the center of the X-ray emission. If the supernova explosion occurred near the center of the X-ray emission then the neutron star must have received a powerful kick in the supernova explosion. Data suggest this supernova remnant, as it appears in the image, is 600 and 1,200 years old. If the estimated location of the explosion is correct, this means the neutron star has been moving at a speed of at least 3 million miles per hour since the explosion. Another intriguing aspect of G350.1-0.3 is its unusual shape. Many supernova remnants are nearly circular, but G350.1-0.3 is strikingly asymmetrical as seen in the Chandra data in this image (gold). Infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (light blue) also trace the morphology found by Chandra. Astronomers think that this bizarre shape is due to stellar debris field expanding into a nearby cloud of cold molecular gas. The age of 600-1,200 years puts the explosion that created G350.1-0.3 in the same time frame as other famous supernovas that formed the Crab and SN 1006 supernova remnants. However, it is unlikely that anyone on Earth would have seen the explosion because of the obscuring gas and dust that lies along our line of sight to the remnant. These results appeared in the April 10, 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I. Lovchinsky et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Very good information. Thanks for letting me know about this to help me in my environmental studies.
I can’t download the application for the 5-8 Photo contest
Help