In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.
Educational Resources - Search Tool
Examine the images to see the projected differences in land use between 1900 and 2100.
This mini lesson focuses on Landsat satellite data and how it is used to detect changes in land use. Students will answer questions based off of a NASA Video that features how Landsat data are interpreted in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, and gives examples of the effects insects and logging have with land management.
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.
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.
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.
This story map lesson plan allows students to explore global phytoplankton distribution using chlorophyll concentration data in a 5 E-learning cycle. Students will investigate the processes that allow phytoplankton populations to thrive, as well as how their role in the carbon cycle impacts the other spheres of the Earth System.
The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional and global scales.