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.

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

This video provides tips for teachers on helping students make sense of data to help them understand and work with data. It is based on the work of Kristin Hunter-Thomson of Dataspire.org and uses data from the My NASA Data Earth System Data Explorer.

This graphic organizer may be used to help students analyze the processes and components of Earth System phenomena.

Students will analyze how surface (skin) temperatures vary across a community and determine what factors contribute to this variation. Students will describe how human activity can affect the local environment. 

 Air, Water, Land, & Life: A Global Perspective

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.

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.

Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected. 

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.