This investigation introduces students to the significant environmental changes occurring around the world. The investigation uses NASA satellite images of Brazil to illustrate deforestation as one type of environmental change.

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 analyze Landsat images of Atlanta, Georgia to explore the relationship between surface temperature and vegetation.

Students synthesize information from My NASA Data maps and texts from the EPA website to determine how levels of criteria pollutants have changed from 2005 to 2021. This research will prepare them to respond to the lesson’s essential questions during a Socratic seminar.

Using hourly graphs of PM 2.5 data and HYSPLIT model trajectories, students will collect evidence for the effects of fireworks on air quality.

By matching pie charts with dates between 2002 and 2020, students will predict how air quality has changed over the past two decades. They will then use color-coded Air Quality Index signatures to assess the accuracy of their predictions.

In this 5Es lesson, students will uncover how changes in global air quality have impacted human health in cities between 2000 and 2019.

Students will synthesize information from maps that show population, concentrations of PM_2.5, and PM_2.5-attributable mortality across the globe in order to draw conclusions about the relationship between particulate pollution and human health. 

Students visit a NASA Website called "Eyes on the Earth" to view satellite missions in 3D circling the Earth and learn to navigate to specific satellites to learn about their capability of analyzing our changing planet and air quality.