Students watch a video and answer questions on Dr. Patrick Taylor (Atmospheric Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center) as he discusses the study of clouds and Earth's energy budget by analyzing data from Low Earth Orbit satellites.
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Students review the NASA video showing biosphere data over the North Atlantic Ocean as a time series animation displaying a decade of phytoplankton blooms and answer questions.
Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.
Students watch a NOVA PBS video about the different effects of clouds on climate and Earth's energy budget. Then they answer questions and brainstorm to complete a flow chart of events that might occur if the percentage of absorbing clouds increases.
Information from satellites if often used to display information about objects. This information can include how things appear, as well as their contents. Explore how pixel data sequences can be used to create an image and interpret it.
Students will analyze a pie chart (circle graph) showing the distribution of different parts of the Earth system's absorption and reflection of energy.
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.
This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.