Helping students build their understanding of Earth's spheres and how they are connected is difficult. Review the graphics to help identify the parts of the Earth System and the processes that connect them at the local, regional, and global scales.
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This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.
Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.
Students review a video showing how the ocean is warmed by solar energy. This is the first video of a four-part series on the water cycle, which follows the journey of water from the ocean to the atmosphere, to the land, and back again to the ocean.
The Hurricane Dynamics Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn how hurricanes affect the different spheres within the Earth System by using maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report informat
The El Niño Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about a condition that sometimes occurs in the Pacific Ocean, but it is so big that it affects weather all over the world.
Students will explore the Nitrogen Cycle by modeling the movement of a nitrogen atom as it passes through the cycle. Students will stop in the different reservoirs along the way, answering questions about the processes that brought them to the different reservoirs.
This lesson was based on an activity from UCAR Center for Science Education.
Students evaluate graphs and images of sea ice and relate them to changes in albedo. Students make a claim about the interaction of albedo and sea ice extent.
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.
Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.