Students differentiate between data sets of monthly shortwave radiation and monthly cloud coverage to discover a relationship between radiation and clouds by answering analysis questions.

Students will investigate the role of clouds and their contribution (if any) to global warming. Working in cooperative groups, students will make a claim about the future role clouds will play in Earth’s Energy Budget if temperatures continue to increase.

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.

Students are introduced to the Earthrise phenomenon by seeing the Earth as the Apollo 8 astronauts viewed our home planet for the first time from the Moon.  They will analyze a time series of mapped plots of Earth science variables that NASA monitors to better understand the Earth

My NASA Data has recently released several new resources, StoryMaps, for use in educational settings.

Students review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.

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.  

Earth is a system of systems.

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA’s expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.