This mini lesson has students explore three visualizations to see the new benchmark map scientists can use to study the extent and speed of changes to the largest ice sheet in the world.

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

Conduct this modified EO Kids mini-lesson with your students to explore the phenomenon of Urban Heat Island Effect.

Students will watch a short video that explains albedo and how it plays an important role in Earth’s Energy Budget. Applying what they learned from the video, students will analyze a bar graph that lists the albedos of common surfaces found on Earth to answer critical thinking questions.

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.

Students watch the video Frozen Earth and answer the following questions that discuss how ice helps moderate the planet's temperature using NASA satellites.

Students watch a video explaining albedo and its impact on Earth. The video shows visualizations of albedo across Earth and how it can change. Students will interpret the images in the video and answer questions about albedo.

Watch NASA videos about aerosols and volcanic ash.

Helping students build their understanding of Earth's spheres and how they are connected is difficult.  Review the graphics to help identify the parts of the Earth System and the processes that connect them at the local, regional, and global scales.

Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2017, and then answer the following questions.