Students explore albedo, sea ice, and the relationship between changing albedo and changing sea ice using data visualizations. 

Students will analyze a graph showing the variation of energy imbalance on Earth over the year along different latitudinal zones and answer the questions that follow.

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.

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

NASA visualizers take data – numbers, codes – and turn them into animations people can see and quickly understand.

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.

Guided by the 5E model, this lesson allows students to work together to uncover how changes in sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic regions are connected to Earth’s energy budget.

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 activity, students will use sea-level rise data to create models and compare short-term trends to long-term trends. They will then determine whether sea-level rise is occurring based on the data.

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.