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 interpret a double bar/column chart comparing the number of tropical cyclones in different locations.

Exploring salinity patterns is a great way to better understand the relationships between the water cycle, ocean circulation, and climate. In this mini lesson, students analyze sea surface salinity mapped plots created from the Earth System Data Explorer, paired with questions (and answers) from the Aquarius Mission. Credit: Aquarius Education

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.

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

This mini lesson engages students by watching a NASA video related to seasonal chlorophyll concentration as it relates to net radiation using NASA's Aqua satellite. Students will examine the model and answer the questions.

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.

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. 

In this mini-lesson activity, students use art to demonstrate their knowledge of an aurora. 

In this activity learners examine the difference between aurora and airglow, while learning about NASA’s ICON Mission.