Helping students build their understanding of Earth's spheres and how they are connected is difficult.  Review the graphics to help identify the parts of the Earth System and the processes that connect them at the local, regional, and global scales.

This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.

Students will make a claim about whether changing albedo contributes to changes in Arctic habitats.

Students evaluate graphs and images of sea ice and relate them to changes in albedo. Students make a claim about the interaction of albedo and sea ice extent.

Using various visualizations (i.e., images, charts, and graphs), students will explore changes in sea ice extent as it relates to other spheres within the Earth System. This story map is intended to be used with students who have access to a computing device in a 1:1 or 1:2 setting.

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

Students analyze map visualizations representing the amount of Sun’s energy received on the Earth as indicated by the amount that is reflected back to space, known as “albedo”.

The Earth System Satellite Images help students observe and analyze global Earth and environmental data, understand the relationship among different environmental variables, and explore how the data change seasonally and over longer timescales.  

Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon.  They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth