Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is affected by many processes including fires, deforestation, and plant respiration. Students will evaluate a Landsat image to determine the rate of carbon dioxide sequestration in a particular area.

Students synthesize information from My NASA Data maps and texts from the EPA website to determine how levels of criteria pollutants have changed from 2005 to 2021. This research will prepare them to respond to the lesson’s essential questions during a Socratic seminar.

Students use Phytopia: Exploration of the Marine Ecosystem, a computer-based tool, to investigate various phytoplankton species and topics relating to phytoplankton biology. 

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.

In this 5E’s lesson, students observe maps that show smoke and AOD levels surrounding Fresno, California at the time when the 2020 Creek Fire was burning. Students construct a claim that identifies a relationship between fire-related data and air quality data.

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.