An urban heat island is a phenomenon that is best described when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than in nearby rural areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way. The difference in temperature between urban and less-developed rural areas has to do with how well the surfaces in each environment absorb and hold heat.
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In this interactive, students will explore safe methods for viewing the Sun at home or in the classroom, including using solar eclipse glasses and a pinhole projector. The interactive includes a video that explains how the projector works and how to build one.
This interactive takes students through the basic mechanics of a solar eclipse, using a NASA Space Place Handout, including an optional eclipse art activity.
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).
In this lesson students will calculate the size to distance ratio of the Sun and the Moon from Earth to determine how a solar eclipse can occur.
Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites. In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.
In this activity, students will analyze past and future eclipse data and orbital models to determine why we don’t experience eclipses every month.
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 Solar Eclipse Implementation Sequence provides a series of lesson plans for students to learn about solar eclipses.
Information from satellites if often used to display information about objects. This information can include how things appear, as well as their contents. Explore how pixel data sequences can be used to create an image and interpret it.