Use the Data Literacy Cubes to guide students’ exploration of data to enrich their observations and inferences.  This is a flexible resource that may be used with a variety of graphical representations of data.  This activity requires a graph for students to evaluate. 

Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon.  They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth System.

In this NASA investigation, "What's Hot at the Mall," students examine how shopping malls change natural environments by examining thermal images gathered by NASA showing an area in Huntsville, Alabama. 

Scientists are interested in learning how the vegetation (collection of plants) of an area can be used to study Earth's climate.

Use the Data Literacy Cubes to guide students’ exploration of mapped data of the Earth System to enrich their observations and inferences.  This is a flexible resource that may be used with a variety of mapped images.  This activity requires a map of Earth data for students to evaluate.

This activity is modified from the USDA/US Forest Services' lesson found in the Natural Inquirer newsletter.  The purpose of this hands-on activity is to engage students in a similar process for monitoring forests as NASA scientists use to study the Biosphere, whereby they apply what they know of

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

Students analyze data from graphs for sea ice extent (area) in both polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic) to learn about seasonal variations and over a 30-year period to learn about longer-term trends.

Students identify and classify kinds of land cover (such as vegetation, urban areas, water, and bare soil) in Landsat satellite images of Phoenix, Arizona taken in 1984 and 2018.