Global Forest Link connects students from around the world to help them explore local environmental changes and share their findings through stories and photographs. They use Global Forest Watch – a new online tool for monitoring forest change in near real-time. With this global-scale application students can explore and compare forests in their areas and analyze the effects climate change, forest management practices, fires and other factors have on forests. Students also collect and compare photographs of forests to validate forest data which were automatically derived from satellite images. Our ultimate goal is to stimulate cross-cultural communication, improve understanding of global and local environmental challenges, and educate students about the rapidly advancing field of Earth observation from space.