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

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.

This StoryMap lesson plan allows students to explore ocean circulation patterns as they relate to the world's ocean garbage patches using NASA ocean currents data. Students will investigate the forces that contribute to ocean circulation patterns, and how debris, especially plastics, travel from land to the garbage patches. 

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

This NASA visualization shows sea surface salinity observations (September 2011-September 2014). Students review the video and answer questions.

Students move through a series of short activities to explore and evaluate global solar radiation data from NASA satellites.  In this process, students make qualitative and quantitative observations about seasonal variations in net energy input to the Earth System.

In this mini-lesson, students analyze soil moisture quantities associated with Hurricane Harvey around Houston, Texas on August 25, 2017.

Students will observe monthly satellite data of the North Atlantic to identify relationships among key science variables that include sea surface salinity (SS), air temperature at the ocean surface (AT), sea surface temperature (ST), evaporation (EV), precipitation (PT), and evaporation minus pre

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

This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.