Students review the NASA video showing biosphere data over the North Atlantic Ocean as a time series animation displaying a decade of phytoplankton blooms and answer questions.

This mini lesson engages students by watching a NASA video related to plant growth activity around the world using data from the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite and answering questions on these stability and change relationships.

Students observe monthly images of changing vegetation patterns, looking for seasonal changes occurring throughout 2017. These data can be used by students to develop their own models of change.

This lesson contains a card sort activity that challenges students to predict relative albedo values of common surfaces. 

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.

Students use albedo values of common surfaces along with photographic images of Earth taken from the International Space Station to make an argument about specific anthropogenic activities that impact Earth’s albedo.