In this story map students will learn about the different components of the Earth's Energy Budget, where in the Earth System energy is being absorbed and reflected, and how features of the Earth such as clouds, aerosols, and greenhouse gases, can cause variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth Systems. In the final section, students make a claim as to why the Earth's Energy Budget is currently out of balance and provide evidence to support their reasoning. 

This mini lesson focuses on the 2015-2016 El Niño event and how its weather conditions triggered regional disease outbreaks throughout the world. Students will review a NASA article and watch the associated video to use as a tool to compare with maps related to 2015-2016 rainfall and elevated disease risk, and answer the questions.

The El Niño Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about a condition that sometimes occurs in the Pacific Ocean, but it is so big that it affects weather all over the world.

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

This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.

Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.

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. 

By matching pie charts with dates between 2002 and 2020, students will predict how air quality has changed over the past two decades. They will then use color-coded Air Quality Index signatures to assess the accuracy of their predictions.

This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change.