In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.

Students will analyze the mapped plot of the historic Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations at key locations around the world for the period of 1998-2018.

Students observe monthly images of changing vegetation patterns, looking for seasonal changes occurring throughout 2017. These data can be used by students to develop their own models of change.

Students analyze surface air temperature anomalies to identify change with respect to different latitudes across the world.

Students analyze historic plant growth data (i.e., Peak Bloom dates) of Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees, as well as atmospheric near surface temperatures as evidence for explaining the phenomena of earlier Peak Blooms in our nation’s capital.

Use the Data Literacy Cube 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 evalu

Our Data Literacy Cube Page (and supporting resources) have been updated!  The new resources include only 1 cube for all three (maps, graphs, and data) Question Sets, Lexile levels, and addresses WIDA standards for multilingual learners!

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

The extreme temperatures during July 2022 prompt students to investigate a model that displays historical heat wave frequency data to discover the importance of defining terms when interpreting data.

Examine (daytime) surface temperature and solar radiation received at locations found near similar latitudes using NASA Data.