Twenty-six students from Colegio Salesiano Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza have georeferenced thirty-four night-time photographs taken from the International Space Station (ISS) in the first Lost at Night activity.
It is the first step of a challenge that Ibercivis will take to schools in Zaragoza, which will take part in a friendly competition with a ranking between schools.
ISS astronauts have been photographing the Earth at night for more than twenty years. Those images show artificial light in great detail, but to be useful as data on light pollution they have to be georeferenced, that is, matched to their exact coordinates. That is the task of Lost at Night, a citizen science initiative which, together with the European project PLAN-B, studies light pollution, noise pollution and biodiversity.
The first activity of the challenge took place at the school itself and followed the format that Ibercivis offers to schools in Zaragoza, with an introductory talk on light pollution followed by hands-on work on the platform. Working in pairs, the students compared each ISS photograph with the map and identified recognisable points, such as coastlines, roads or junctions, to place the image in its exact location. Each georeferenced image becomes a piece of data that the PLAN-B team will be able to use to study how night-time darkness is being lost in Europe and what effects this has on ecosystems and health. With these activities, Ibercivis also wants students to take part in real research, learn to read images taken from space and compare references to decide where each photograph belongs.
A friendly competition between schools in Zaragoza
The activity at Colegio Salesiano Nuestra Señora del Pilar paves the way for those to come. Each school takes part as a team in a friendly competition and its contributions count towards a ranking of the city’s schools. The school opens the table with 180 control points and 34 completed tasks, which places it second as of 12 November, behind only the team of Fundación Ibercivis itself, which has 195. In addition, after the session the students can keep taking part from home or from the classroom with the challenges that Ibercivis will be setting.
Schools in Zaragoza that wish to take part in any of the Lost at Night activities can write to Ibercivis at info[@]ibercivis.es to ask questions or arrange a session. The session is free, lasts one hour and takes place at the school. It is aimed at secondary school students aged 14 and over, including Bachillerato, and only requires one computer for every two students and an internet connection. Teachers have a teaching unit (in Spanish) and video tutorials to get to know the platform before the session.