Remote SensingAudience #1 is a group of high school students who are introduced to the term for the first time. Have you ever seen the movie Enemy of the State? How about The Bourne Identity or any recent James Bond film? All these films have something in common: they use amazing graphics in the form of maps or satellite images, all the result of remote sensing. Remote sensing is a method by which scientists collect information about the earth's surface from a distance. Remote sensing can be traced back to the 1860s and has since developed into the primary method of collecting data from the Earth's surface. The most important things to know about remote sensing are why it is needed, how it works, and what it is used for. Humans have used maps since ancient times; they have been the tool of explorers, politicians, armies and navigators. Throughout recorded history, we can see endless examples of maps used to represent a portion of the earth, giving people a visual illustration of their surroundings. While maps are useful for finding out where a place is, they are simply a representation. In the late 19th century, a French photographer named Felix Tournachon decided to use a recent invention, the camera, to create a new type of map. Using a hot air balloon, Tournachon raised his camera into the sky and took a photograph of the ground. The result was the first remotely sensed image of the Earth's surface, a simple photograph showing a bird's eye view of the photographer's (NASA) surroundings. The advent of this new technology has revolutionized not only map-making, but also the way humans see the earth. Where once there were only drawings of where a place is located, it is now possible to not only see where a place is located,...... middle of paper......gement, carbon management and disasters (39).Works Cited NASA Earth Observing System. Network. March 14, 2010. This NASA website contains a lot of information about EOS, including a definition of its mission statement. Oxford English Dictionary. OED online. Network. March 14, 2010. Definition for Remote SensingParkinson, Claire L. Earth Sciences Reference Manual. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2006. Print. This publication is a comprehensive guide to NASA's Earth science program. Includes information on satellite missions and other examples of applied remote sensing. The remote sensing tutorial. Network. 20 March 2010. This page provides information on the history of remote sensing, including the first recorded incidences.