This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change. 

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

Students watch a visualization video and answer questions on the potential of increasing megadroughts in the southwest and central United States from 1950-2095 using models created by soil moisture data.

Students analyze diagrams showing the effects of clouds on Earth’s Radiation and answer the questions that follow. This mini lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between clouds and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy. 

The Earth System Poster activity walks learners through global patterns and illuminates how each of the spheres is interconnected across the world. We will divide into small groups to look at maps of different parts of the earth system that have been observed by NASA satellites.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

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.

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. 

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.