In Part A of this lab, students will examine a variety of images and maps of the whole Earth in order to identify the major components of the Earth system at a global scale.

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.  

In this activity, students use satellite images from the NASA Landsat team to quantify changes in glacier cover over time from 1986 to 2018. 

This unit, created through the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI), helps students learn about each component of the energy budget formula and how the contribution of each component changes based on the location and the time of the year. 

Scientific data are often represented by assigning ranges of numbers to specific colors. The colors are then used to make false color images which allow us to see patterns more easily. Students will make a false-color image using a set of numbers.

For over 20 years, satellite instruments have measured the sea surface height of our ever-changing oceans.  This video of images shows the complicated patterns of rising and falling ocean levels across the globe from 1993 to 2015.