Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.

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 seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

In this experiment, students make a claim about the cause of ocean currents and then develop a model to explain the role of salinity and density in deep ocean currents.  This lesson is modified from "Visit to an Ocean Planet" Caltech and NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

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.

Students will analyze surface temperature and solar radiation data to construct explanations about the relationship of seasons and temperature to the amount of solar energy received on Earth’s surface.

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