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

The fires in Greece during the summer of 2007 devastated large tracks of forest and ground cover in this Mediterranean region. Students analyze these data to determine the scale, area, and percentage of the forest impacted by of these fires.

In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.

The Earth System Satellite, help the learner visualize how different Earth system variables change over time. In this lesson, students will graph six points for a location over one year.

Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is affected by many processes including fires, deforestation, and plant respiration. Students will evaluate a Landsat image to determine the rate of carbon dioxide sequestration in a particular area.

Explore using units for calculations with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). NDVI is a ratio of different light wavelength reflectance which can be used to map the density of green vegetation.

Explore using units in calculations with the Leaf Area Index (LAI). LAI is a ratio that describes the number of square meters of leaves per square meter of available land surface. Because of the units in the ratio, it is dimensionless.

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