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.
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Background information on snow and ice extent.
Helping students build their understanding of Earth's spheres and how they are connected is difficult. Review the graphics to help identify the parts of the Earth System and the processes that connect them at the local, regional, and global scales.
Grade Level: 3-5,
6-8,
9-12
My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.
Grade Level: 3-5,
6-8,
9-12
Earth is a system of systems.
Many of our archived lessons date back to as early as 2004 when our learning community first formed and unfortunately contain links to content that is no longer updated or exist. Please note that some of these have been updated, and we continue to update them. Please check ou
Grade Level: 3-5,
6-8,
9-12
Background information on ocean circulation.
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.
Explore the energy and matter cycles found within the Earth System.
The Earth's system is characterized by the interaction of processes that take place on molecular (very small) and planetary (very large) spatial scales, as well as on short and long time scales. Before scientists may begin their work with these data, it is important that they understand what the data are.
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