This activity introduces students to aspects of the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and litho/geosphere and how they are interrelated. It is designed to promote an interest in authentic investigations of Earth using images acquired by astronauts as the hook.

Students watch a short video to gather information about sources of methane emissions and then extend their understanding of these sources to evaluate monthly trends in the Alaska region, ultimately making connections to Earth’s energy budget.

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.

Students compare climographs for two locations to determine the most likely months to expect the emergence of mosquitoes in each location.

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.

This mini lesson engages students in watching a NASA video related to accumulated dust that makes the trans-Atlantic journey from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon rainforest using NASA's CALIPSO satellite. Students will examine a model and answer questions related to dust transport and the introduction of phosphorus to the soils of the Amazon.

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.

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.

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

This learning activity uses data acquired by the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter, a joint project of NASA and the French Space Agency, to investigate the relationship between the topography of a sea-floor feature and the topography of the overlying sea surface.