A kinesthetic activity that challenges students to participate in a model that describes the fate of solar energy as it enters the Earth system. A good initial lesson for Earth’s energy budget, students unravel the benefits and limitations of their model.
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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
This mini lesson engages students in writing a commentary for a NASA video regarding changes in global temperatures from 1880 to 2017.
In this mini lesson, students explore the relationship of chlorophyll and solar radiation by analyzing line graphs from the North Atlantic during 2016-2018.
Students will explore the relationship between Nitrogen Dioxide and Precipitation in Earth's atmosphere. They will explore the data provided, make a claim, and complete a slide guided by a rubric.
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
Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.
By investigating the data presented in a model that displays extreme summer air temperatures, students explain energy transfer in the Earth system and consider the impact of excessive heat on local communities.
Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.