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.

Students compare climographs for two locations to determine the most likely months to expect the emergence of mosquitoes in each location.

In this interactive, students will learn the basics of space weather by engaging in a short interactive which introduces key terms: space weather, sunspot, solar flare, coronal mass ejection, and solar wind. Students will be able to identify the causes and hazards of space weather.

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 will investigate the role of clouds and their contribution (if any) to global warming. Working in cooperative groups, students will make a claim about the future role clouds will play in Earth’s Energy Budget if temperatures continue to increase.

The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional and global scales.

 Air, Water, Land, & Life: A Global Perspective