This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities. 

The purpose of this activity is to have students use an Earth Systems perspective to identify the various causes associated with changes to Earth's forests as they review Landsat imagery of site locations from around the world.

Students watch the video Frozen Earth and answer the following questions that discuss how ice helps moderate the planet's temperature using NASA satellites.

What is sea-level rise and how does it affect us? This "Teachable Moment" looks at the science behind sea-level rise and offers lessons and tools for teaching students about this important climate topic. 

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 analyze a graph that illustrates the change in global surface temperature relative to 1951-1980 average temperatures.

In this activity, students investigate three different soil samples with varying moisture content. They use a soil moisture probe to determine the percentage (by volume) of water in each of the soil samples.

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

Students connect day/night and seasonal cycles with albedo in the Arctic region. 

This mini lesson focuses on Earth's Energy Budget and the surface effects that occur in Central Australia. Students review a line graph depicting net radiation in Central Australia related to a multiyear drought from 2002 - 2009 and answer the questions.