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.

Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2017, and then answer the following questions.

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

Students observe monthly images of changing vegetation patterns, looking for seasonal changes occurring throughout 2017. These data can be used by students to develop their own models of change.

Students review the NASA video showing biosphere data over the North Atlantic Ocean as a time series animation displaying a decade of phytoplankton blooms and answer questions.

This mini lesson engages students by watching a NASA video related to plant growth activity around the world using data from the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite and answering questions on these stability and change relationships.

Students watch a video explaining albedo and its impact on Earth. The video shows visualizations of albedo across Earth and how it can change. Students will interpret the images in the video and answer questions about albedo.

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.  

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

This series of videos highlights how NASA Climate Scientists use mathematics to solve everyday problems.  These educational videos to illustrate how math is used in satellite data analysis.