On the 11th of February 2013, NASA launched the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), which once operational will become known as Landsat 8, from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California. LDCM will help continue the longest continuous data record initiated by Earth Resources Satellite – 1, now called Landsat 1, in 1972. The launch was the culmination of more than a decade of political, fiscal, and scientific negotiations, as well as approximately six years of physical construction of the satellite and sensors by engineers at Ball Aerospace, NASA, and Orbital Sciences Corporation.

New Course: GEOG398F, Desertification: Science & Myth
Spring Semester, Wednesdays 4:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Instructor: Steve Prince, Professor, Geographical Sciences
 
Desertification, or dryland degradation, is caused by drought and human activities on susceptible land. It is claimed that, globally, 24% of land is degrading in some 100 countries, homes to about 1.5 billion people, causing losses of $42 billion per year.
 
Facts:
 

On October 13th, world-renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and UN Messenger of Peace, visited the Department of Geographical Science’s University of Maryland (UMD)-CARPE team before giving her keynote presentation to the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS). Dr. Lilian Pintea, vice president of conservation science at the Jane Goodall Institute, accompanied Dr. Goodall. 
 

GEOG 328B, The Geography of the Caribbean, is a 3-credit, short-term, faculty accompanied, Study Abroad program. This course is the product of the joint efforts of the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences and the University’s Education Abroad Department.
 
The program studies the cultural and physical geography of the Windward and Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. The class, led by Professor Joseph Trocino, a lecturer within the Department of Geographical Sciences, spends at least 7 days aboard a windjammer tall ship, along with time spent on land.  Islands visited are, for the most part, non-tourist islands!