Helping students build their understanding of Earth's spheres and how they are connected is difficult. Review the graphics to help identify the parts of the Earth System and the processes that connect them at the local, regional, and global scales.
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This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.
Students will make a claim about whether changing albedo contributes to changes in Arctic habitats.
This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.
Students evaluate graphs and images of sea ice and relate them to changes in albedo. Students make a claim about the interaction of albedo and sea ice extent.
The Earth System Satellite Images help students observe and analyze global Earth and environmental data, understand the relationship among different environmental variables, and explore how the data change seasonally and over longer timescales.
Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon. They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth
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.