A new project is being developed to consider the use of Thermographics in Education.

A thermographic is a registration of the surface temperature by detecting long-wavelength infrared radiation. You can compare the image with a weather chart. It’s like holding 80.000 thermometers at the same time in front of an animal. The colors added to the measurements create the image. The colors show variations in temperature. You can capture images at night or in daytime, it doesn’t matter, you need different surface temperatures though.

In the Polar regions you’ll only find a few species of animals. They are definitely the best to-cold-adapted animals of the world. The biodiversity is not comparable with for example a rainforest, where you’ll find thousands of different animals. We can learn a lot from the thermoregulating-champions in the polar regions. Respecting their habitat is like creating the best classroom of the world for future generations.

We often look at the world around us through an infrared camera, so we notice a lot of interesting things concerning surface temperatures. Infrared-images are a well known technique in industry, research, weather forecasting, space-exploration, vetanarian- and energy advice. For example to find electrical problems, infections or heat losses. We focus on animals because they have a very interesting story to tell about thermoregulation. How can they survive at the most difficult places of the world, very hot or very cold. All they need is the sun and some building materials found around, no additional energy use, no litter left.

Thermoregulation is a key word, it combines a lot of diffent topics. The thermographics are an interesting way to make some parts of this system visable. But it might as well be cartoons or other graphics if those are better suited to tell the story to younger children. Thermographics are valuable because you really have to think about what you see. A full-color image of lion is very clear, but what is the big red spot above the eye of the reindeer visable on a thermograph? (open bloodvessels after loosing it's horns). You can also compare a lot of different animals based on the same thing: surface temperature. This way you see connections you would have missed in full-color.

More information can be found on the project website.