“They provide you with the opportunity to monitor the Earth globally and monitor aspects of biodiversity that were very much neglected before.”

Monitoring extraordinarily large territories, providing access through visibility to remote areas, and boosting transparency of countries’ environmental standards are some of the benefits she cites. Satellites “change everything,” says Nathalie Pettorelli, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London and author of the book Satellite Remote Sensing and the Management of Natural Resources. The notion that schoolkids are as capable of accessing Earth Observation data as scientists and government ministers is an indication of how satellite technology has revolutionized scientific research across the globe, and especially of the environment. They then passed on their findings to the BAS. Inspired by a David Attenborough program on the plight of the iconic bird, the teens and their teacher used satellite mapping imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2, developed an algorithm, and found traces of unknown and unconfirmed colonies. When researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) published a study last year on its discovery of 11 new colonies of emperor penguins, they acknowledged an unusual source of assistance – students at Stirling High School in Scotland.

Satellite map of world