Image Credit: NASA

Explore the energy and matter cycles found within the Earth System. 

Phytoplankton distribution background information.

Do you need tools to help using the Earth System Data Explorer?  MND offers several ways to learn more about how to use this data visualization tool.

This video is a resource that can be used alongside any activity that involves creating and developing questions. While the video focuses on questions about trees, the basic principles are necessary for asking scientific questions. 

Explore the biosphere and why it is important.

This video provides tips for teachers on helping students make sense of data to help them understand and work with data. It is based on the work of Kristin Hunter-Thomson of Dataspire.org and uses data from the My NASA Data Earth System Data Explorer.

The Cryosphere refers to any place on Earth where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice. The frozen water can be in the form of solid ice or snow and occurs in many places around the Earth. People often think of the polar regions of our planet as the main home of the Cyrosphere; the North Pole in the Arctic, as well as the South Pole in the Antarctic. The cryosphere exists in the polar regions, but is also found wherever snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs exists. In these places, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year. 

Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

The My NASA Data visualization tool, Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE), helps learners visualize complex Earth System data sets over space and time. Visit this page to review the datasets we have available to you and their organization by Earth System sphere, science variable, dataset name, and start/end dates.