GEON's OpenTopography Portal project, in collaboration with the TeraGrid Project, invites Earth science educators at the community college and undergraduate level to participate in a workshop to be held at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, August 5-7, 2009 on using high-resolution LiDAR topography and the GEON OpenTopography Portal in the classroom.
The goal of this workshop is to explore how these real world, cutting-edge, digital topographic data could be used in the classroom to allow students to explore geologic processes, landforms, and natural hazards. This will be a small, focused, hands-on workshop where participants will have one-on-one access to experts in LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and digital topography as well as experts in learning technology.
During the course of the 3-day workshop, participants will be introduced to LiDAR topography and the OpenTopography Portal. They will then develop and demonstrate lesson plans and activities around OpenTopography and high-resolution LiDAR topography. Educators will be encouraged to brainstorm and develop ways that the Portal and data could be easily integrated into their standard curriculum using simple and freely available software such as Google Earth.
