Air, Water, Land, & Life: A Global Perspective

Students review Earth System phenomena that are affected by soil moisture.  They analyze and evaluate maps of seasonal global surface air temperature and soil moisture data from NASA satellites. Building from their observations, students will select a location in the U.S.

Students will examine a 2014-2015 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event to identify relationships among sea surface height, sea surface temperature, precipitation, and wind vectors.

Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected. 

By investigating the data presented in a model that displays extreme summer air temperatures, students explain energy transfer in the Earth system and consider the impact of excessive heat on local communities.

This investigation is part of the NASA: Mission Geography Module "What are the causes and consequences of climate change?" that guides students through explorations in climatic variability and evidence for global climate change. 

The Earth System Satellite Images, help the learner visualize how different Earth system variables change over time, establish cause and effect relationships for a specific variable, identify patterns, and determine relationships among variables over one year.

The Earth System Satellite Images, along with the Data Literacy Cubes, helps the learner identify patterns in a specific image.  

In this activity, students explore the Urban Heat Island Effect phenomenon by collecting temperatures of different materials with respect to their locations.  

The Earth System Satellite Images, along with the Data Literacy Cubes, help the learner determine relationships among variables.