This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy. 

Students learn how to estimate the "energy efficiency" of photosynthesis, or the amount of energy that plants absorb for any given location on Earth. This is the ratio of the amount of energy stored to the amount of light energy absorbed and is used to evaluate and model photosynthesis efficiency.

Students will analyze a graph showing the amounts of peak energy received at local noon each day over the year changes with different latitudes. 

Students will examine how radiation, conduction, and convection work together as a part of Earth’s Energy Budget to heat the atmosphere.

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

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

NASA visualizers take data – numbers, codes – and turn them into animations people can see and quickly understand.

Students will investigate the role of clouds and their contribution (if any) to global warming. Working in cooperative groups, students will make a claim about the future role clouds will play in Earth’s Energy Budget if temperatures continue to increase.

Students develop and test a hypothesis about how albedo affects temperature.

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