Watch NASA videos about aerosols and volcanic ash.

Students model Earth's tectonic plate movement and explore the relationship between these movements and different types of volcanoes.

Compare pictures of different volcanoes. Then visit NASA's Space Place to learn about volcanoes and answer questions about volcanic eruptions.

Students will review the NASA Space Place video, "Tectonic Forces", and answer questions about tectonic plates.

Students examine satellite images of a recently formed island to identify areas of erosion and deposition.

Compare images from two volcanic eruptions in the Kuril Islands which occurred ten years apart and complete a graphic organizer for impacts on different Earth spheres. 

This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.

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.

The Earth System Satellite Images help students observe and analyze global Earth and environmental data, understand the relationship among different environmental variables, and explore how the data change seasonally and over longer timescales.  

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.