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. 

Students model Earth's tectonic plate movement and explore the relationship between these movements and different types of volcanoes.

What is the atmosphere and why is it important?

Do you need tools to help using the Earth System Data Explorer?  MND offers several ways to learn more about how to use this data visualization tool.

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

The My NASA Data visualization tool, Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE), helps learners visualize complex Earth System data sets over space and time. Visit this page to review the datasets we have available to you and their organization by Earth System sphere, science variable, dataset name, and start/end dates. 

Earth is made up of five major parts or subsystems: the Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Biosphere, Cryosphere, and Geosphere. Each major part is connected to the other parts in a complex web of processes.

The Geosphere is associated with solid portions of the Earth. It includes the continental and oceanic crust and all other layers of the Earth's interior.  This includes all rocks, sediments and soils, surface landforms and the processes that shape the Earth's surface.

Students analyze map visualizations representing the amount of Sun’s energy received on the Earth as indicated by the amount that is reflected back to space, known as “albedo”.

The Earth System Satellite Images, along with the Data Literacy Cubes, helps the learner identify patterns in a specific image.