In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.

Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2017, and then answer the following questions.

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA’s expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

Interpret the map, or model, to find patterns in the occurrence of tropical cyclones from 1842 through 2018.

Earth is a system of systems.

Examine the images to see the projected differences in land use between 1900 and 2100. 

This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

Phytoplankton distribution background information.