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.

This mini lesson engages students by watching a NASA video related to seasonal chlorophyll concentration as it relates to net radiation using NASA's Aqua satellite. Students will examine the model and answer the questions.

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.

Phytoplankton background information.

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

Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

Hands-on demonstration of the El Niño Effect, trade winds, and upwelling provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.

Examine (daytime) surface temperature and solar radiation received at locations found near similar latitudes using NASA Data.