Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

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

This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Students will analyze and interpret graphs to compare the flow of (shortwave) energy from the Sun toward China over the course of a year on cloudy versus clear days. Students will draw a conclusion and support it with evidence.

Students will analyze and interpret maps of the average net atmospheric radiation to compare the flow of energy from the Sun toward Earth in different months and for cloudy versus clear days. Students will draw conclusions and support them with evidence.

Students analyze Landsat images of Atlanta, Georgia to explore the relationship between surface temperature and vegetation.

The Earth System Satellite Images, help the learner visualize how different Earth system variables change over time, establish cause and effect relationships for a specific variable, identify patterns, and determine relationships among variables over one year.

Students will analyze surface temperature and solar radiation data to construct explanations about the relationship of seasons and temperature to the amount of solar energy received on Earth’s surface.

To investigate the different rates of heating and cooling of certain materials on earth in order to understand the heating dynamics that take place in the Earth’s atmosphere.