This mini lesson focuses on the 2015-2016 El Niño event and how its weather conditions triggered regional disease outbreaks throughout the world. Students will review a NASA article and watch the associated video to use as a tool to compare with maps related to 2015-2016 rainfall and elevated disease risk, and answer the questions.

Students watch videos and/or review articles related to particulate matter and how this pollutant is monitored and measured, then provide their understanding individually or in groups.

Students review a video that models the global impact of smoke from fires to develop an understanding of how models can be used to interpret and forecast phenomena in the Earth System. 

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

This hands-on activity is the construction of an extended coverage area of eclipse glasses to provide extra protection for safely viewing a solar eclipse. This makes it harder to look outside the lenses on the eclipse glasses.

In this NASA-JPL lesson, students create a model of a volcano, produce and record lava flows, and interpret geologic history through volcano formation and excavation. 

In this activity, students will model the geometry of solar eclipses using quarters to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale).

A kinesthetic activity that challenges students to participate in a model that describes the fate of solar energy as it enters the Earth system.  A good initial lesson for Earth’s energy budget, students unravel the benefits and limitations of their model.

In this lesson students will calculate the size to distance ratio of the Sun and the Moon from Earth to determine how a solar eclipse can occur.

In this activity, students will model  the geometry of solar eclipses by plotting a few points on a piece of graph paper, and using quarters and a nickel to represent the Sun and Moon (not to scale).