In this mini lesson, students use in-water profiles of historical ocean data to analyze how sea surface salinity varies with depth. 

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

Students review an animation of monthly average wind speed at 10 meters above the ocean surface for our global ocean to analyze the relationship between winds and ocean surface currents.

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

This mini-lesson features time-series graphs of mean salinity at the surface for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. A series of questions guides students in their analysis.

Students will use coloring sheets to create a color coded model of El Niño and analyze it. If the Data Literacy Map Cube is used with this, students will color their models first.

This mini lesson focuses on the 2015-2016 El Niño event and how its weather conditions triggered regional disease outbreaks throughout the world. Students will review a NASA article and watch the associated video to use as a tool to compare with maps related to 2015-2016 rainfall and elevated disease risk, and answer the questions.

Students review a video showing how the ocean is warmed by solar energy. This is the first video of a four-part series on the water cycle, which follows the journey of water from the ocean to the atmosphere, to the land, and back again to the ocean.

This video provides tips for teachers on helping students make sense of data to help them understand and work with data. It is based on the work of Kristin Hunter-Thomson of Dataspire.org and uses data from the My NASA Data Earth System Data Explorer.

At the core of scientific visualization is the representation of data graphically - through images, animations, and videos - to improve understanding and develop insight. Data visualizers develop data-driven images, maps, and visualizations from information collected by Earth-observing satellites, airborne missions, and ground measurements. Visualizations allow us to explore data, phenomena and behavior; they are particularly effective for showing large scales of time and space, and "invisible" processes (e.g. flows of energy and matter) as integral parts of the models.