Phytoplankton distribution background information.

This mini-lesson features time-series graphs of mean salinity at the surface for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A series of questions guides students in their analysis.

Students will analyze the mapped plot of the historic Ocean Chlorophyll Concentrations at key locations around the world for the period of 1998-2018.

Background information on soil moisture.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

In this lesson, students investigate and identify various phytoplankton using images that were previously taken with a compound microscope.  Credit:  This lesson is modified from a lesson of the same name created by The Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education&nbsp

What is the hydrosphere and why is it important?

Using a “fun-size” bag of rainbow bite-sized candies learners will place different colored candies on a diagram of the Sun-Earth system to show different space weather conditions during solar minimum and solar maximum.

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

In this activity, learners predict the likelihood of aurora on Earth by examining the Kp-index and using NOAA’s 30-minute aurora forecast.