This exercise is designed to help you make large-scale observations of the world in which you live. To complete the exercise, follow the instructions below and complete a short essay describing some of the important geological features of your local area.

1. Go to the Astronaut Photography of Earth website maintained by the NASA's Johnson Space Center and familiarize yourself with this marvelous resource of Earth images taken from the United States Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

2. Click on the "Find Photos" tab at the top of the page. In a moment, you will see a map of Earth. Move your cursor over an area of interest and click on it to get a more detailed view of the area. Clicking in any grid of the detailed map will generate a list of every image in the collection from that area. You can browse through the images simply by scrolling through this list.

3. Try locating images from your hometown or a large city near you by following the "Techincal Search" link on the left side of the "Find Photos" page.

4. Scroll through the series of images for your area and choose one with the least cloud cover and clearest imagery.

5. Once you have selected an image, copy it to your browser's clipboard and paste the image into a word processing document. Write a few brief paragraphs about your image.

a. Include the image data from the catalog (such as the space mission, the date, the altitude, etc.) and describe the area your image covers;

b. What evidence of human activities can you identify in your image?;

c. What major geographic features are evident (large lakes, river, mountains, valleys)?

d. Write down at least three questions you have regarding the geology of your image and share them with you professor or the rest of the class;

e. Have your professor choose one image and discuss the geological features of it with the class.