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.

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!
 

 On July 23, 2012, AGU co-hosted a briefing for the 40th anniversary of the Landsat program along with Congressional hosts Representative Bruce Braley and Representative Tom Latham . AGU writes, “As the world's longest-running Earth-observing satellite program, Landsat is a fundamental archive of human and natural changes to the Earth and its data has a wide variety of uses. It has provided scientific and policy insight in such diverse subjects as the improvement of human health, environmental assessments, biodiversity estimates, energy and water management, urban planning, natural disaster recovery, and agricultural monitoring. We were proud to support NASA and the USGS as they review the past 40 years of success and look forward to 40 more.