This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.
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In this NASA investigation, "What's Hot at the Mall," students examine how shopping malls change natural environments by examining thermal images gathered by NASA showing an area in Huntsville, Alabama.
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 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.
Students consider the impact of changing conditions on the remote island of Little Diomede, Alaska after they investigate the relationship between seasonal trends in sea ice extent with shortwave and longwave radiation flux described in Earth’s energy budget.
This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.
This lesson walks students through the use of Landsat false-color imagery and identification of different land cover features using these as models.