Students will watch a video on the Greenland Ice Sheet and answer questions.

The fires in Greece during the summer of 2007 devastated large tracks of forest and ground cover in this Mediterranean region. Students analyze these data to determine the scale, area, and percentage of the forest impacted by of these fires.

In this mini lesson, students analyze a bar graph showing the relative forcings from natural and human factors that affect Earth's climate. They use information from this graph to assess the relative importance of these factors.

Students will analyze a line graph that shows how the surface temperature and air temperature values change over the course of 24 hours.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is affected by many processes including fires, deforestation, and plant respiration. Students will evaluate a Landsat image to determine the rate of carbon dioxide sequestration in a particular area.

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.

Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.

After learning about the different characteristics of satellite data, students will describe the advantages and disadvantages of using two different satellites to study the Urban Heat Island Effect.  

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. 

Phytoplankton distribution background information.