In this activity students will make observations about the objects, size, distance, and motion of the Sun, Earth, and Moon during a solar eclipse.

In this activity students will make observations about the objects, size, distance, and motion of the Sun, Earth, and Moon during a solar eclipse and manipulate slides to show the relationships.

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.

Students analyze historic plant growth data (i.e., Peak Bloom dates) of Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees, as well as atmospheric near surface temperatures as evidence for explaining the phenomena of earlier Peak Blooms in our nation’s capital.

In this activity, students will model  the geometry of solar eclipses by plotting a few points on a piece of graph paper, and using quarters and a nickel to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale). 

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces. 

Students will observe monthly satellite data of the North Atlantic to identify relationships among key science variables that include sea surface salinity (SS), air temperature at the ocean surface (AT), sea surface temperature (ST), evaporation (EV), precipitation (PT), and evaporation minus pre

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation, looking for any changes in vegetation that are occurring throughout the year. They put the images in order based on what they know about seasonal changes.

Students will analyze and interpret maps of the average net atmospheric radiation to compare the flow of energy from the Sun toward Earth in different months and for cloudy versus clear days. Students will draw conclusions and support them with evidence.

Students will use the NASA Earth Observations analysis tool to explore changing albedo in the Arctic compared with other areas of Earth.