Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology.
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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.
Students model Earth's tectonic plate movement and explore the relationship between these movements and different types of volcanoes.
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.
Review this page to learn about the background of volcanoes and their eruptions.
Students use scale to determine the area of volcanic deposits following the March 3, 2015 eruption of Chile's Mount Villarrica stratovolcano, one of the country's most active volcanoes.
Phytoplankton distribution background information.
Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.
An urban heat island is a phenomenon that is best described when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than in nearby rural areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way. The difference in temperature between urban and less-developed rural areas has to do with how well the surfaces in each environment absorb and hold heat.
In this activity, students make a claim about the cause of ocean currents and then develop a model to explain the role of temperature and density in deep ocean currents. This lesson is modified from "Visit to an Ocean Planet" Caltech and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.