Students will identify and describe the relationship between land cover classification and surface temperature as they relate to the urban heat island effect. Students will also describe patterns between population density and the locations of urban heat islands. 

Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment. 

This story map lesson plan allows students to explore global phytoplankton distribution using chlorophyll concentration data in a 5 E-learning cycle. Students will investigate the processes that allow phytoplankton populations to thrive, as well as how their role in the carbon cycle impacts the other spheres of the Earth System. 

Students review an animation of monthly average wind speed at 10 meters above the ocean surface for our global ocean to analyze the relationship between winds and ocean surface currents.

Students observe monthly images of changing vegetation patterns, looking for seasonal changes occurring throughout 2017. These data can be used by students to develop their own models of change.

In this mini lesson, students explore the relationship of chlorophyll and solar radiation by analyzing line graphs from the North Atlantic during 2016-2018.

The Urban Heat Island Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about the processes that create differences in surface temperatures, as well as how human activities have led to the creation of urban heat islands. 
 

Students consider the impact of changing conditions on the remote island of Little Diomede, Alaska after they investigate the relationship between seasonal trends in sea ice extent with shortwave and longwave radiation flux described in Earth’s energy budget.

Using an infographic, students describe differences in electromagnetic radiation that is part of a model of Earth’s energy budget by applying the defined terms of Shortwave Radiation and Longwave Radiation.

By investigating the data presented in a model that displays extreme summer air temperatures, students explain energy transfer in the Earth system and consider the impact of excessive heat on local communities.