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

Students watch a video explaining albedo and its impact on Earth. The video shows visualizations of albedo across Earth and how it can change. Students will interpret the images in the video and answer questions about albedo.

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

Students connect day/night and seasonal cycles with albedo in the Arctic region. 

Students review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.

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. 

Students observe the map image, individually, looking for changes in surface air temperatures (using data displayed, unit of measure, range of values, etc.) and noticeable patterns.

This NASA visualization shows sea surface salinity observations (September 2011-September 2014). Students review the video and answer questions.

Students observe seasonal images of Monthly Leaf Area, looking for any changes that are occurring throughout the year.

This mini-lesson features time-series graphs of mean salinity at the surface for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A series of questions guides students in their analysis.