Students will analyze the monthly seasonal chlorophyll concentration images in our global oceans for the four different months of 2017, and then answer the following questions.

Students will identify and describe the relationship between watersheds and phytoplankton distribution. 

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.

Students identify patterns in chlorophyll concentration data to formulate their explanations of phytoplankton distribution. 

In this mini lesson, students explore the relationship of chlorophyll and solar radiation by analyzing line graphs from the North Atlantic during 2016-2018.

Students will analyze a pie chart (circle graph) showing the distribution of different parts of the Earth system's absorption and reflection of energy. 

In this lesson, students investigate and identify various phytoplankton using images that were previously taken with a compound microscope.  Credit:  This lesson is modified from a lesson of the same name created by The Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education&nbsp