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.

Use the Data Literacy Cube to guide students’ exploration of mapped data of the Earth System to enrich their observations and inferences.  This is a flexible resource that may be used with a variety of mapped images.  This activity requires a map of Earth data for students to evalu

Phytoplankton distribution background information.

An urban heat island is a phenomenon that is best described when a city experiences much warmer temperatures than in nearby rural areas. The sun’s heat and light reach the city and the country in the same way. The difference in temperature between urban and less-developed rural areas has to do with how well the surfaces in each environment absorb and hold heat.

Earth is a system of systems.

This lesson is taken from NASA's Phytopia: Discovery of the Marine Ecosystem written in partnership with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science with funding from the National Science Foundation.

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 activity, students explore the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon by collecting temperatures of different materials with respect to their locations.