This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities. 

Watch NASA videos about aerosols and volcanic ash.

The Earth System Poster activity walks learners through global patterns and illuminates how each of the spheres is interconnected across the world. We will divide into small groups to look at maps of different parts of the earth system that have been observed by NASA satellites.

The Earth System Satellite Images, along with the Data Literacy Cubes, helps the learner identify patterns in a specific image.  

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.  

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

NASA Worldview is a free online visualization tool that is a great launchpad for learners who are new (or veteran) users of satellite data.

The world's surface air temperature is getting warmer. Whether the cause is human activity or natural changes in the Earth System—and the enormous body of evidence says it’s humans—thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 

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.

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.