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.
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This investigation introduces students to the significant environmental changes occurring around the world. The investigation uses NASA satellite images of Brazil to illustrate deforestation as one type of environmental change.
An urban heat island is a phenomenon that is best described when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than in nearby rural areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way. The difference in temperature between urban and less-developed rural areas has to do with how well the surfaces in each environment absorb and hold heat.
Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.
In this activity, students investigate three different soil samples with varying moisture content. They use a soil moisture probe to determine the percentage (by volume) of water in each of the soil samples.
This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces.
This mini lesson engages students in watching a NASA video related to accumulated dust that makes the trans-Atlantic journey from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon rainforest using NASA's CALIPSO satellite. Students will examine a model and answer questions related to dust transport and the introduction of phosphorus to the soils of the Amazon.
This story map allows students to explore the formation and impacts of ash and aerosols from volcanic eruptions around the world in a 5 E-learning cycle. They will investigate how ash and aerosols produced from volcanic eruptions are hazardous to the human ecosystem, and will analyze concentrations of aerosols from a volcanic eruption over time.
This unit plan is published by the NASA Climate Change Research Initiative's (CCRI) Applied Research STEM Curriculum Portfolio. The CCRI Unit Plan, called “Urban Surface Temperatures and the Urban Heat Island Effects,“ has the purpose to educate students how climate is changi