For over 20 years, satellite instruments have measured the sea surface height of our ever-changing oceans. This video of images shows the complicated patterns of rising and falling ocean levels across the globe from 1993 to 2015.
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Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.
Students review a video showing how the ocean is warmed by solar energy. This is the first video of a four-part series on the water cycle, which follows the journey of water from the ocean to the atmosphere, to the land, and back again to the ocean.
Scientific data are often represented by assigning ranges of numbers to specific colors. The colors are then used to make false color images which allow us to see patterns more easily. Students will make a false-color image using a set of numbers.
Students will analyze a projected map of the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse across the US, with an accompanying data table of the locations and times, to explain how people in different locations experience a solar eclipse.
Learn about the different cloud types and their names. Match cloud photos and names by cloud type and for all types. Evaluate the types of clouds represented in various data displays.
This USGS activity leads students to an understanding of what remote sensing means and how researchers use it to study changes to the Earth’s surface, such as deforestation.
Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.
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”.
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