Students watch a visualization video and answer questions on the potential of increasing megadroughts in the southwest and central United States from 1950-2095 using models created by soil moisture data.

Students examine the two time series images to determine the differences between seasonal ice melt over water versus land.

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 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.

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 watch a short video that explains albedo and how it plays an important role in Earth’s Energy Budget. Applying what they learned from the video, students will analyze a bar graph that lists the albedos of common surfaces found on Earth to answer critical thinking questions.

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

The extreme temperatures during July 2022 prompt students to investigate a model that displays historical heat wave frequency data to discover the importance of defining terms when interpreting data.

Students construct explanations about Earth’s energy budget by connecting a model with observations from side-by-side animations of the monthly mapped data showing incoming and outgoing shortwave radiation from Earth’s surface.

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