This interactive mapping tool allows users to examine the restoration potential of a specific area by drawing a polygon on the map in order to view data about the carbon, water, biodiversity, environment, socioeconomic situation, scientific monitoring, ecosystems, and tree cover for the area inside the polygon.
Students can click on the yellow markers on the map to view restoration sites around the world.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This fun resource can be used in a variety of engaging ways.
Some of the restoration sites have a "satellite time series" that shows the restoration progress via satellite images.
Students can view the world map using a wide variety of data layers.
Additional Prerequisites
Students can take a tour by clicking the question mark icon located at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Differentiation
Biology classes could use this resource to look at the biodiversity in different regions.
Science classes could use the bar on the left side of the page, searching by "intervention type" to learn more about restoration projects around the world.
Other resources on this topic include this video on the loss of biodiversity, this video from the Nature Conservancy that shows how nature can solve climate change, and this Khan Academy video on conservation.
Scientist Notes
The map provides real-time data on human modification of land from satellites. It is useful for acquiring on-the-spot information on land use, land cover change, and classification. This resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
HS-ESS3-3 Create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.2.6-8 Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions, and changes in their environmental characteristics.
D2.Geo.1.9-12 Use geospatial and related technologies to create maps to display and explain the spatial patterns of cultural and environmental characteristics.
