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 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.
The Solar Eclipse Implementation Sequence provides a series of lesson plans for students to learn about solar eclipses.
The El Niño Implementation Sequence provides a series of lessons and activities for students to learn about a condition that sometimes occurs in the Pacific Ocean, but it is so big that it affects weather all over the world.
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.