The purpose of this activity is for students to create a desktop soil profile based on the biome region of the United States where your school is located.

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

Explore and connect to biosphere protocols in GLOBE. Each protocol has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified, as well.

Explore and connect to protocols in GLOBE related to the cryosphere. Each protocol has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified as well.

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.

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.  

Examine the images to see the projected differences in land use between 1900 and 2100. 

Background information on soil moisture.

Students discuss their current understanding of what Earth systems are and how they work and consider how to identify the boundaries of a region for Earth system study.