Students will analyze surface temperature and solar radiation data to construct explanations about the relationship of seasons and temperature to the amount of solar energy received on Earth’s surface.

Students review a video showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012 and answer the questions that follow.

Examine (daytime) surface temperature and solar radiation received at locations found near similar latitudes using NASA Data.

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.

Students review a visualization showing a global view of the top-of-atmosphere longwave radiation from January 26 and 27, 2012. They review the supporting text and analyze the data in the visualization to answer questions.

Students will analyze a graph showing the variation of energy imbalance on Earth over the year along different latitudinal zones and answer the questions that follow.

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.