This series of videos highlights how NASA Climate Scientists use mathematics to solve everyday problems. These educational videos to illustrate how math is used in satellite data analysis.
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In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
In this activity, students use satellite images from the NASA Landsat team to quantify changes in glacier cover over time from 1986 to 2018.
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NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas
NGSS Science and Engineering Practices
- Analyzing and Interpreting Data
- Asking Questions and Defining Problems
- Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions
- Developing and Using Models
- Engaging in Argument from Evidence
- Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information
- Planning and Carrying out Investigations
- Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking
NGSS Crosscutting Concepts
Supported NGSS Performance Expectations
- 4-ESS2-2: Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.
- 4-PS4-2: Develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects and entering the eye allows objects to be seen.
- 5-ESS2-1: Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
- 5-ESS2-1: Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
- HS-ESS3-5: Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth's systems.
- HS-ESS3-5: Analyze geoscience data and the results from global climate models to make an evidence-based forecast of the current rate of global or regional climate change and associated future impacts to Earth's systems.
- MS-ESS2-2: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.
- MS-ESS2-2: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how geoscience processes have changed Earth's surface at varying time and spatial scales.
- MS-ESS2-4: Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth's systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity.
- MS-ESS3-5: Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
- MS-PS4-2: Develop and use a model to describe that waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials.
Supported Common Core Math
- CC.4.MD.4 Represent and interpret data. Make a line plot to display a data set of measurements in fractions of a unit (1/2, 1/4, 1/8). Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions by using information presented in line plots. For example
- CC.5.MD.2 Represent and interpret data. Make a line plot to display a data set of measurements in fractions of a unit (1/2, 1/4, 1/8). Use operations on fractions for this grade to solve problems involving information presented in line plots. For example,
- (-) CC.6.RP.3c Find a percent of a quantity as a rate per 100 (e.g., 30% of a quantity means 30/100 times the quantity); solve problems involving finding the whole given a part and the percent.
- CC.6.SP.2 Develop understanding of statistical variability. Understand that a set of data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape.
- CC.6.SP.3 Develop understanding of statistical variability. Recognize that a measure of center for a numerical data set summarizes all of its values with a single number, while a measure of variation describes how its values vary with a single number.
- CC.6.SP.4 Summarize and describe distributions. Display numerical data in plots on a number line, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots.
- CC.6.SP.5 Summarize and describe distributions. Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context.
- CC.7.RP.3 Analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems. Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems. Examples: simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and co
- CC.9-12.N.Q.1 Reason quantitatively and use units to solve problems. Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the or
- CC.9-12.N.Q.2 Reason quantitatively and use units to solve problems. Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.*
- CC.9-12.S.ID.1 Summarize, represent, and interpret data on a single count or measurement variable. Represent data with plots on the real number line (dot plots, histograms, and box plots).*
- CC.9-12.S.ID.2 Summarize, represent, and interpret data on a single count or measurement variable. Use statistics appropriate to the shape of the data distribution to compare center (median, mean) and spread (interquartile range, standard deviation) of tw
- CC.9-12.S.ID.3 Summarize, represent, and interpret data on a single count or measurement variable. Interpret differences in shape, center, and spread in the context of the data sets, accounting for possible effects of extreme data points (outliers).*
- CC.9-12.S.ID.4 Summarize, represent, and interpret data on a single count or measurement variable. Use the mean and standard deviation of a data set to fit it to a normal distribution and to estimate population percentages. Recognize that there are data s
- Geometry