Originally intended to assist farmers determine accurate assessments for their farms and to provide information on crop determination and soil conservation, today these images provide some of the oldest land use/cover information available. They are used extensively in agriculture, conservation, urbanization, recreation, education, hydrology, geology, land use, ecology, geography, and history.

In 2002, the Digital Library Center at the University of Florida received funding from the Florida State Library in the form of a "Library Services and Technology Act Grant" to digitize the 1937-55 flight images.
The project is called From the Air: the photographic record of Florida's lands. Images are accessible to all over the Web at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/digital/collections/flap/index.htm

SNAP SHOTS IN TIME

Aerial photos show you exactly what a location looked like at a particular point in time. By comparing photos from different years, you can see how land uses have changed, grown, and developed. Print out the same location at different years for side-by-side comparisons, or open two images side-by-side on your computer monitor. Using same scale images, make a transparency from one year and overlay it on an earlier year.  

Once you learn to identify a variety of natural and man-made features, you can easily observe changes that have taken place: new roads develop and expand, bridges are built, houses grow out of forested or agricultural land, new recreation areas are created, and shorelines are dotted with marinas and homes. Images depict community growth along transportation corridors and near valuable natural resources. Bridges spread urbanization to undeveloped areas.

 If you develop additional units with these aerial resources, please share them with others by submitting your units to this site. To add units, please contact: The Digital Library Center, University of Florida Libraries at dlc@mail.uflib.ufl.edu

Independent Learner Units

Classroom Units