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This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

To investigate the different rates of heating and cooling of certain materials on earth in order to understand the heating dynamics that take place in the Earth’s atmosphere.

This story map lesson plan allows students to explore ocean circulation patterns as they relate to the world's ocean garbage patches using NASA ocean currents data.

Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.

Students analyze historic plant growth data (i.e., Peak Bloom dates) of Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees, as well as atmospheric near surface temperatures as evidence for explaining the phenomena of earlier Peak Blooms in our nation’s capital.

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces. 

Students will observe monthly satellite data of the North Atlantic to identify relationships among key science variables that include sea surface salinity (SS), air temperature at the ocean surface (AT), sea surface temperature (ST), evaporation (EV), precipitation (PT), and evaporation minus pre

Students analyze map visualizations representing the amount of Sun’s energy received on the Earth as indicated by the amount that is reflected back to space, known as “albedo”.