Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected. 

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces. 

Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.

Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.

Students will practice the process of making claims, collecting evidence to support claims, and applying scientific reasoning to connect evidence to claims.

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

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

This StoryMap allows students to explore the urban heat island effect using land surface temperature and vegetation data in a 5 E-learning cycle. Students investigate the processes that create differences in surface temperatures, as well as how human activities have led to the creation of urban heat islands. 

This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change. 

In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.