Students consider the impact of changing conditions on the remote island of Little Diomede, Alaska after they investigate the relationship between seasonal trends in sea ice extent with shortwave and longwave radiation flux described in Earth’s energy budget.

Space weather refers to the conditions of the space environment driven by the Sun and its impacts on objects in the solar system. Though it is almost 100 million miles away from Earth, the Sun influences our daily lives in ways you may not realize. 

Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.

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.