Students review a video that models the global impact of smoke from fires to develop an understanding of how models can be used to interpret and forecast phenomena in the Earth System. 

Compare images from two volcanic eruptions in the Kuril Islands which occurred ten years apart and complete a graphic organizer for impacts on different Earth spheres. 

Dr. Norman Loeb, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is the principal investigator for an experiment called the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES). CERES instruments measure how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and how much thermal energy is emitted by Earth to space.