Promotion of remote sensing in school education in Germany

Earth observation based on satellite remote sensing offers excellent opportunities for studying and understanding the local and global environment. It can visualise the environment from new and interesting perspectives. The sensors onboard the satellites offer a specific kind of perception that is quiet different from our daily perception: the satellite views the roofs of houses, not the walls like we do. It views the tops of the trees, not its trunks. In addition, the satellite's view is not obscured by obstacles. The satellite sees the settlement or town, not the individual house, it sees the forest, not the individual tree. Satellites depict objects factually and consistently over an entire area while the human eye is always selective in its perception. The satellite observes more spectral regions than just the ones visible to the human eye. Such data from other spectral regions are visualised in "false" colours, objects are not displayed in their "true" colours-this implicates a different approach to observing our environment. The satellites view the Earth repetitively and one can compare the images from different dates. Dynamic processes ranging from weather patterns to slow environmental change such as desertification are easily documented.