Students review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.
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Students watch a short video to gather information about sources of methane emissions and then extend their understanding of these sources to evaluate monthly trends in the Alaska region, ultimately making connections to Earth’s energy budget.
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.
In this activity, students will use sea-level rise data to create models and compare short-term trends to long-term trends. They will then determine whether sea-level rise is occurring based on the data.
Students will make a claim about whether changing albedo contributes to changes in Arctic habitats.
The extreme temperatures during July 2022 prompt students to investigate a model that displays historical heat wave frequency data to discover the importance of defining terms when interpreting data.
Air, Water, Land, & Life: A Global Perspective
Students analyze two North Pole orthographic data visualizations produced from soil moisture data. After describing trends in the seasonal thaw of land surfaces, students demonstrate their understanding of Earth’s energy budget by explaining relationships and make predictions about the dataset.
Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.
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