This StoryMap lesson plan allows students to explore ocean circulation patterns as they relate to the world's ocean garbage patches using NASA ocean currents data. Students will investigate the forces that contribute to ocean circulation patterns, and how debris, especially plastics, travel from land to the garbage patches. 

In this mini lesson, students use in-water profiles of historical ocean data to analyze how sea surface salinity varies with depth. 

Students will identify and describe the relationship between watersheds and phytoplankton distribution. 

Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.

Students identify patterns in chlorophyll concentration data to formulate their explanations of phytoplankton distribution. 

The activities in this guide will help students understand variations in environmental parameters by examining connections among different phenomena measured on local, regional and global scales.

NASA visualizers take data – numbers, codes – and turn them into animations people can see and quickly understand.

What is the hydrosphere and why is it important?

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 explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.