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.

Background information on ocean circulation.

The purpose of this lesson is for students to compare data displays to determine which best answers the driving question. To do this they will evaluate the spread of the data and what the displays show. 

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.

In this activity, students use satellite images from the NASA Landsat team to quantify changes in glacier cover over time from 1986 to 2018. 

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.

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

Students examine satellite images of an island before and after a volcanic eruption to determine the impact of the eruption.

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.

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.