The PreviSat Satellite Tracker Can Teach Navigation and Astronomy

It isn't always easy to capture the interest, or to spark the imagination of kids in the classroom. However, if you ask most kids what topics they find interesting, the most common answers will include space and technology. WEBSITE: http://previsat.sourceforge.net/

In nearly any subject in school, if you can somehow incorporate technology or outer space, you can be sure that you'll enjoy the rapt attention of nearly every child in the classroom. One excellent tool that you can use to bring technology and space into the classroom is an application called PreviSat, a satellite tracker that shows you where every known satellite is located far above the surface of the Earth.

The ability to track this allows you to teach students about things like how GPS navigation systems work, how to calculate longitude and latitude, identifying satellites while searching for star constellations, and many other interesting topics.

PreviSat gives you all of the tools and information you need to bring the latest satellite technology and information right into the classroom in real time.

PreviSat Satellite Tracker in the Classroom

What PreviSat brings to the table goes far beyond its obvious function as a satellite tracker tool. PreviSat provides a bundle of interesting and useful learning opportunities in a small package. The entire application consists of a central window that displays the entire world on a 2D plane, with coordinates along the right and bottom, and even the ability to include a shadow that represents where it's currently nighttime on the planet.

Previsat Main Screen

There is a lot of great information and valuable learning opportunities hidden throughout this application. At the core of its features is of course its satellite tracking ability. Depending on which satellite names you check off on the right side of the main window, those satellites will appear over the world map, with a circle representing the range of the satellite, and another line tracking the satellite's path.

Tracking Satellites

The real hidden gems in PreviSat can be found at the bottom of the main window, where large volumes of information are tucked into the application. The fascinating thing about this software is that it's all live - everything you're seeing includes the latest information from all of the active satellites orbiting above the Earth. That fact alone should get your students to sit up in their seats.

Satellite Information

Using the information found at the bottom of the screen under the "Main" tab, you'll find the navigational information about where the satellite is currently located. You could take a telescope out and skywatch - using the coordinates to see if your students can correctly locate the current position of the satellite.

Navigational Information

To use this information correctly, you'll need to click on the "Options" tag and make sure that you select a major city closest to your geographic location on Earth. This way, the orientation and navigational information provided by PreviSat will be tailored for your specific location.

Students can click only on the satellites that they are interested in seeing. So, if you're studying only weather satellites, then you can look up their names on the Internet, and then select only those satellites to track their locations over the planet. Likewise, if you're only interested in GPS satellites, you could do the same.

Select Satellites

The ground range circles are useful for deciding whether or not to try and see if you can visually locate the satellite in the sky. If you're within the circle, the odds are pretty good that your students might be able to spot it.

Satellite Footprints

You can tailor the display to show or hide whatever information you'd like to see, such as the night shadow showing where nighttime is on the map, the location of the planet where the Sun and the Moon is in a direct line, and other things like showing the Satellite's footprint, names, and more.

Display Options

Another great navigation lesson for students is to use the other tools that are included in PreviSat for doing things like predicting the future path of the satellites over time. You can actually run those predictions inside of the "Predictions" tab, and when you click "Run" it will produce a detailed navigational report of updated location positions of the satellite every minute.

Satellite Location Reports

This is a great resource to teach students about longitude and latitude coordinates. A good exercise would be to have them use the coordinate path to manually trace the future path of the satellite onto a computer or paper printout of an Earth map, and then see how close their drafted path matches the computer model on PreviSat.

With many of the information tabs open, you can actually click on satellites on the map, and the informational panel will automatically update to reflect the information for that specific satellite.

Satellite Information

Of course, learning navigation and plotting coordinates on a map is educational, but PreviSat even provides something for budding astronomers. You can switch the view of the Earth to an actual 3-D model that overlays the positions of the constellations onto the model.

View of Constellations

This view also provides glowing orbs to identify the location of a satellite, and a line behind it to identify its path. This is a fantastic tool for young astronomers to not only learn the location of those constellations using a telescope, but to also use the constellations themselves as location markers to locate the passing satellite.

Another fun tool in the lower right corner of the main window, even though it may not provide a whole lot of educational value, is the "radar" display showing nearby satellites for your location.

Satellite Radar

This could of course be useful for a teacher that may want to time satellite-viewing outdoor exercises to coincide perfectly with when a satellite is almost directly overhead.

As you can see, software like this satellite tracker could easily turn a dry and boring subject like navigating with a coordinate system into a fun and exciting adventure that kids will enjoy and remember for years afterwards. So give PreviSat a try and see if it ignites your students' imaginations, as they look up into the sky to see if they can locate that passing satellite, before it disappears.