In this activity, students explore three indicators of drought are: soil moisture, lack of precipitation, and decreased streamflows. Students investigate each of these parameters develop a sense for the effects of drought on land.
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In this mini lesson, students use in-water profiles of historical ocean data to analyze how sea surface salinity varies with depth.
Hands-on demonstration of the El Niño Effect, trade winds, and upwelling provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.
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.
Conduct this modified EO Kids mini-lesson with your students to explore the phenomenon of Urban Heat Island Effect.
Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected.
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.
This NASA visualization shows sea surface salinity observations (September 2011-September 2014). Students review the video and answer questions.
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.
Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.