Students will watch and examine a NASA animation of Earth’s rising surface temperatures over an almost 150 year period.

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

This lesson uses the National Park Service Story Map which displays national parks around the contiguous United States and their standard exceedance ozone concentrations from 2016-2021. Students will explore ozone levels and answer questions.

Several heat domes have occurred over the last few summers and around the world. This lesson provides one example from 2021 in Portland, Oregon, with temperature and ozone data.

In this lesson, students will explore the effect of aerosols on sky color and visibility by using an interactive virtual model. 

Students will analyze images and data from a variety of NASA sensors and satellites depicting the wildfires of northern Canada to understand the state of the atmosphere at the time. Then they will answer a series of questions. 

Students watch a 28-minute video on NASA's involvement in fighting wildfires.

This video addresses the following question: "We know that there are a number of ways that data can be visualized. Would you please describe your process for looking at the same data as represented by different graph types and how this helps inform your meaning making from the data?"

Students will practice the process of making claims, collecting evidence to support claims, and applying scientific reasoning to connect evidence to claims.

This video addresses the following question: "We know that the science you do is driven by the big questions around Earth System Science. Could you please describe how you shape the questions that you ask before, during, and after you have collected data, how do you initially look at these data to help explore your initial set of questions?"