Students will examine how radiation, conduction, and convection work together as a part of Earth’s Energy Budget to heat the atmosphere.

To investigate the different rates of heating and cooling of certain materials on earth in order to understand the heating dynamics that take place in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

Use the Earth System Data Explorer to analyze data and make a claim about which 2018 eruption was larger, Kilauea, HI or Ambae Island, Vanuatu.

Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.

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.