Several heat domes have occurred over the last few summers and around the world. This lesson provides one example from 2021 in Portland, Oregon, with temperature and ozone data.
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Students will analyze images and data from a variety of NASA sensors and satellites depicting the wildfires of northern Canada to understand the state of the atmosphere at the time. Then they will answer a series of questions.
Students observe how air quality changes over time, for a selected location, using data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Students watch videos and review articles related to ozone as a pollutant at ground level, and how ozone impacts environment, then provide their understanding in groups.
Students identify and classify kinds of land cover (such as vegetation, urban areas, water, and bare soil) in Landsat satellite images of Phoenix, Arizona taken in 1984 and 2018.
Students watch videos and/or review articles related to particulate matter and how this pollutant is monitored and measured, then provide their understanding individually or in groups.
Students will identify and describe the relationship between land cover classification and surface temperature as they relate to the urban heat island effect. Students will also describe patterns between population density and the locations of urban heat islands.
Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment.
Students can interact with NASA data to build a custom visualizations of local, regional, or global plant growth patterns over time, using the Earth System Data Explorer to generate plots of satellite data as they develop models of this phenomenon.